


Sound of my Soul

by orphan_account



Category: Glee
Genre: Alternate Universe - Future, F/F, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Happy Ending, Light Angst, Pen Pals, Romantic Comedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-09
Updated: 2011-04-09
Packaged: 2019-04-20 17:10:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 34,369
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14265756
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: A romantic comedy set in the future when Rachel and Quinn are in their early 30s-- a cross-country school project brings Rachel’s son and Quinn’s daughter together as pen pals. Hijinks ensue. AU because Quinn kept Beth and also because you know, this is fanfic.Jesse dies, Mike and Quinn divorce. Rachel and Quinn reconnect through their children's penpal project. Angst meter: low-medium





	1. Chapter 1

**Title:** Sound of my Soul  
**Author:** Sulkygeek  
**Rating:** R  
**Length:** 34, 380 [acrosss 7 parts + epilogue]  
**Spoilers:** Through ‘Original Song’ to be safe  
**Summary:** A romantic comedy set in the future when Rachel and Quinn are in their early 30s-- a cross-country school project brings Rachel’s son and Quinn’s daughter together as pen pals. Hijinks ensue. AU because Quinn kept Beth and also because you know, this is fanfic. Character death for: Jesse St.James

There’s a line in here that I have Rachel utter-- ‘ruminate, I obviously mean ‘pondering’ and not ‘chewing cud’ which is a bastardization of a line from ‘Pushing Daisies’. I feel like that’s something Rachel would say. The “Noodle Thing” is a homage to Calvin and Hobbes.

\--

* * *

 

When Rachel picked the kids up from school, Max was cheerful, but complaining about the lame assignment for social studies. Mia was chiming in every few minutes to agree with Max that the assignment was very lame, but since they weren’t even in the same class (being two years apart), Mia was mostly just trying to get Max’s attention, a fact that did not escape Max, who was nine years old, but going on forty. He was polite toward his little sister, but dismissive.

Rachel read over the assignment and didn’t think it was so bad-- though a little outdated. Pen pals? Pen pals weren’t even in vogue when _she_ was nine, but at least it didn’t have to be done over postal mail. Apparently, Mr. Caldwell tried to push for it, but there was a small class revolt and it was agreed everyone would do it over email. Mr. Caldwell had a colleague in California and the pairings were made randomly, matching up Mr. Caldwell’s fourth graders with Ms. Timmons’s third graders.

Nine years old and her kid already had an email address. It seemed kind of ridiculous to Rachel, because really, who did he have to communicate with whom he couldn’t see in person or speak with on the phone, but what the hell.

Max was assigned to Chloe Chang, who was eight to Max’s nine. When he was in kindergarten, Max had plenty of friends who were girls, but now that he was in fourth grade, his interest in girls primarily consisted of squirting water at them and insulting them for the mere fact they were girls. Rachel blamed this on the fact Jesse was somewhat of a secret chauvinist, a fact Rachel ignored (with some effort) until the day her husband died.

Still, Max was sweet and good to his sister the majority of the time, so Rachel didn’t think she had any right to complain, not when it came to the kid department. Unless one counted the fact she found out she was pregnant with baby number three an entire month after her husband was already dead. Anyway, with Jesse being dead only four months, Rachel thought maybe it would be good for Max to have a peer to confide in. Maybe the distance and the facelessness of this Chloe Chang would make it easier for Max to talk about it. Maybe not. But Rachel was willing to hope. She had to hold onto hope because Max spent the first month inconsolable and then one day, emerged from his room, cheerful and chatty and had not mentioned his father ever since, not even to chime in with a “me too” when Mia made the occasional “I miss daddy” remark. But Rachel knew it was always on his mind because Max had a tendency to rewatch Jesse’s memorial video on an endless loop.

Maybe she was putting too much into a dumb class assignment in her kid’s class, but she just wanted her son to _mourn_ and she was putting her hope into anything and everything, even an outdated social experiment.

\-----

To: maxmjames @ hotmail.com,  
CC: qfchang @ hotmail.com, rbjames @hotmail.com,  
From: ccchang @hotmail.com

Dear Max:

Hello, how are you? I am good. My name is Chloe. I live with my mother and my two sisters. Both my sisters are very annoying, especially my big sister. My other sister is my twin and I like her okay, but she is a monster. I am two minutes older than her. My favorite color is purple. I am Christian, but only because my mom makes us go to church every Sunday. She might get really mad when she reads this, but I’m leaving it in anyway because I already told her I don’t want to go. When I visit my dad, he takes us to a Chinese church where we fall asleep. What do you want to be when you grow up? I am going to be a ship captain. Probably a pirate, but not the kind that robs people. I want to be the kind that buries treasure so other people can find it a long time later. Then I’ll find other pirates treasure that they buried hundreds of years ago. You can visit if you want, but only if you promise not to tell either of my sisters where I am.

Sincerely,

Chloe Chang

 ------

To: ccchang @hotmail.com  
CC: rbjames @hotmail.com, qfchang @ hotmail.com  
From: maxmjames @ hotmail.com,

 

Dear Chloe:

How are you? I am good. I live with my mother and my sister. My mom is pregnant again. Yesterday, she told the baby (in her stomach) to “hurry up and finish baking and come out already!” Mom cries sometimes and she says it’s the baby in her stomach making her emotional, so I hope the baby comes out soon, too. My favorite color is gold, because it’s my mom’s favorite color. I ‘m not Christian, I’m Jewish and my mom only makes us to synagogue only sometimes. My dad was Catholic, but we only went to mass on Christmas Eve and Easter. When we go to synagogue, my mom doesn’t let us fall asleep, she says she’ll pinch us if we do. But so far she hasn’t yet. I wouldn’t mind being a pirate. Or an astronaut. You can be an astronaut with me, too and visit me on my moon house. But you can’t bring my sister. Or this new baby.

P.S. If you are a pirate and I am an astronaut, I’ll be sure to drop some supplies for you from space in case you are stuck on an island.

Sincerely,

Max  
\-----

Quinn smiled as she read the email with Chloe. This Max seemed sweet and she was utterly amused her odd duck daughter was assigned to a pen pal who seemed similarly inclined to piratery and sibling hate. She felt a little more comfortable with the assignment because the kids were supposed to CC the parents on each email. She kind of wondered what the other parent thought about the email correspondence, but not enough to fire off an email. She planned to forward some over to Mike, partly because he was Chloe’s father and entitled to know what was going on in her life, but also because he’d likely be tickled by the correspondence.

Chloe’s twin, Molly, was also in the class, but she’d been paired up with a student significantly less interesting. The letter had been rife with spelling and grammatical errors which Molly picked up on right away and immediately cast judgment on.

Mike must have known she was thinking of him, because her phone rang and his smiling face popped up on her caller ID. Sometimes she wished they could have worked out-- she loved him, he loved her and she was convinced he was the best father in the world. But there was no regretting things that couldn’t be changed.

“Hey,” she drawled.

“Hey,” he said cheerfully. “How are my girls?”

It wasn’t so long ago she would have been included in “my girls” but now she knew he only meant Beth, Molly and Chloe.

“Beth is grounded again,” Quinn sighed. Her spirited daughter was always testing limits and trying to get away with stuff she had no business trying.

“What did she do?”

He sounded worried. Mike was the best stepfather imaginable. Puck would always be ‘Dad’ to Beth and they got along great, but it was Mike that Beth addressed as ‘Daddy,’ a fact Puck resented, but could hardly argue with. Even with the divorce, Mike still saw Beth more than Puck did and Mike insisted on paying child support for Beth, too. Puck was fun Dad, but Mike was _Daddy_.

“She got caught ditching at the mall with Natasha.”

Quinn left out the part about finding pictures of Beth and Natasha kissing in the photobooth at the mall. Beth insisted they were just friends and “playing around” but Quinn was sure there was something more there. She didn’t much care, because she’d known Natasha since she and Beth were _little_ , but Mike still thought of Beth and Natasha as seven year olds and would undoubtedly flip his shit at the thought of his teenage stepdaughter and her best friend making out.

Mike groaned. “Is she suspended?”

“No, just detention this time.”

“I’ll talk to her.”

“It’s okay, Mike. I got it covered.”

“What about the twins?”

“They’re not kissing anyone,” Quinn joked.

“Funny,” Mike commented dryly. “Seriously. How are they?”

“They’re good. They’re doing this pen pal assignment over email with some kids in New York. I’ll forward you the emails, they’re kind of hilarious.”

“Cool,” Mike said, sounding pleased. “Can you put the kids on the phone?”

“Yeah.”

She gave the phone first to Beth and went back to her bedroom. She wanted to give the girls space to talk to Mike.

She felt lonely without him. As much as she knew it was over between them, she remembered what it was like when they first got together, back in college when she couldn’t leave Lima because of Beth and Mike couldn’t afford to leave the state. Some of the other gleeks stayed behind-- Kurt, for one, who found he loved his dad too much to leave his homophobic hometown. But she spent more time with Mike because she and Finn were broken up by then, and she did her best to tiptoe around him so they wouldn’t have any awkward accidental encounters. There’d been too many of those to remember now with any clarity, but what emerged from that time was falling in love with a boy she never really considered.

Mike was graceful-- he moved like water and one would think he’d just be all over the place considering the fluid way in which he maneuvered through the world. But he was solid and steady and when he moved to LA after graduating from college, he took Quinn and Beth with him.

But even the best relationships curdled.

\--

The class assignment only had to exchange an email a week for a couple months. Chloe seemed unmotivated to write Max back, and so Quinn had to sit her daughter down to do it on the last day. Molly had fired off an insincere, unfelt email to her penpal a few days prior-- Molly was like that, she could talk to anyone, tell a story to anyone and Quinn was sure Molly was the kid who was going to give her a _lot_ of grief when they got older. Plus, Molly was the kid who wanted to get things over with, Chloe was a procrastinator.

Once Chloe sat down though, the words seemed to flow.

\-------- 

To: maxmjames @ hotmail.com,  
CC: qfchang @ hotmail.com, rbjames @hotmail.com,  
From: ccchang @hotmail.com

Dear Max,

I would not like it if MY mom got pregnant, because there’s already three of us and my sisters are very annoying. Especially my sister Molly. My sister Beth is conceited because she is always telling me to go away. I wouldn’t want another sister or brother. I’d want a dog. If I got a dog, I might name him Snoopy. Or Murder.

I think it would be nice to be an astronaut, but I’d still rather be a pirate because you can get a parrot and a hook. I’d like to have an eye patch, but not if my eye is poked out. What is your favorite movie? My favorite movie is March of the Penguins, even though it is sad, because I like penguins.

Sincerely, Chloe.

\------

Quinn wanted to groan when she read it because Chloe fired it off without Quinn reading it over. She was sure Max’s mother would not appreciate the comment about preferring a dog over a sibling. She hoped Max’s mother wouldn’t get angry enough to actually address it because pregnancy hormones could make a woman crazy. She nearly screamed when she read the thing about naming a dog ‘Murder’ and sat down with Chloe to demand where the hell she came up with that. She’d been mortified when she realized that Chloe hadn’t meant ‘murder’ in the homicide sense, but in the ‘collection of crows’ sense.

The reply from Max came four days later.

\------

To: ccchang @hotmail.com  
CC: rbjames @hotmail.com, qfchang @ hotmail.com  
From: maxmjames @ hotmail.com,

Dear Chloe,

How are you? I am good. I’m glad my mom is having another baby because it makes her happy because my dad died four months ago. So I’m okay with having another brother (my mom said it’s a boy) I have a dog. He’s a mutt that followed my mom home one day. My stupid sister named him Arf and since our dog is stupid, we can’t change it or else he won’t understand his name anymore.

I want to be an astronaut, but being a pirate sounds cool. Would you have your own boat? Maybe when I’m an astronaut, I can buy one for you so you don’t have to steal one.

I liked March of the Penguins, too. It made my mom cry though. My favorite movie is the Indiana Jones movie. If I don’t get to be an astronaut, I’d be an archaeologist. What’s your favorite song? Mine is ‘Don’t Rain on my Parade.’ My mom likes to sing it.

Sincerely,

Max

\-----

Rachel read through the correspondence Max was sharing with this Chloe Chang girl and thought Chloe Chang was a weird little kid. Naming a dog _Murder_? What was up with that, but Max seemed pleased because he apparently thought Murder was a better name for a dog than Arf, so Max liked her. Plus, it was the first time Rachel could recall Max talking about Jesse, even in passing, since Jesse died. Her son refused to talk to the therapist she took him to after Jesse died, so she was just relieved that Max was talking about it. Mia was her kid who wore her heart on her sleeve, but Max internalized everything.

She was still trying to work through things herself, so she really couldn’t fault her little man, but she wished her son would be more expressive-- it just seemed healthier that way.  
  
She loved Jesse, and he was a great father to their kids. But he wasn’t the greatest husband. He was sweet to her, sure, but they’d married young-- before she was even out of college and fidelity wasn’t something he was good at. It wore at her, because really, the only thing she’d ever wanted was to be good enough for _someone_ and granted her kids loved her and she was good enough for _them_ , but it just wasn’t the same thing. She’d rather be a good mother than a good wife or girlfriend _any_ day of the week, but she was only human and she needed affection and loyalty from someone who wasn’t a kid whose age wasn’t even in the double digits yet.

Maybe one day they would have weathered through-- after all, she was Rachel and he was Jesse and they’d always had amazing chemistry. The older he got, the more he got away from his Jesse St. Jerk past. That was the thing which made it so hard to hate him-- she knew he’d always come back to her, their bed and the family and life they built together. He may have had his mistresses, but she was the wife. He may have had secondaries, but she was his primary. But it just _hurt_ he didn’t love her or want her enough to stay faithful.

She’d been wrestling with the idea of leaving him when he’d died. She’d still loved him, but every confessed affair was like a grain of salt being added into the open wound in her heart. But the kids loved it when they were all together. She and he both traveled for work, their careers often taking them away from home for months at a time, which is why they’d both agreed to stay primarily on stage and not really continue venturing into movies which often took them to faraway cities and countries. Max and Mia were just so _happy_ when they all did something together as a family, that Rachel could never bear to take that away from them.

But she started to love Jesse a little less for it. Then he just dropped dead one day of an aneurysm while she was at rehearsal and he was filming a guest spot on a TV show just a few blocks away.

She dropped out of her show even before she figured out she was pregnant, because while the show must go on, there was only so much she could go on without needing a chance to catch her breath.

Some days, the only thing which kept her from going crazy was the fact Max and Mia needed at least _one_ functional parent and since they’d lost the better parent, Rachel knew she had to keep it together _somehow_. Most days she wished she’d been the one who had the aneurysm because Jesse was the better parent and it seemed goddamn tragic to her that if her kids had to lose _any_ parent, they had to lose the superior one.

It was a thought she kept to herself, and she was terrified of the day she’d look into one or both of her kids’ eyes and see that thought reflected there.

 


	2. Chapter 2

  
“Molly, did you write Steven back?” Quinn asked, as she came into the living room to address her daughters who were overly involved in a TV program featuring puppets. “I didn’t see it in my email.”

Molly looked at her with exasperation. “Maybe you missed it,” she said. “But I did it ages ago.”

Quinn suppressed the urge to snap at the tone. Clearly Molly was taking lessons from Beth in terms of attitude. “Ages meaning when?”

Molly grinned at her, showing off a mouth crammed full of tiny baby teeth. “Yesterday, mom.”

‘Mom.’ What happened to ‘Mommy’? But that smile did Quinn in, because she couldn’t be mad.

Quinn whipped out her phone to check her email and found it. She really had missed it. She sighed. “Fine,” she said grudgingly, reading it over. “Chloe? Did you write Max?”

“No,” Chloe said flatly. “And I don’t feel like it this week.”

“Chloe, it’s for school.”

“I don’t care,” Chloe said petulantly. “I’m still mad at him!”

Molly groaned and flopped herself so that half of her body was draped over the arm of the couch. “Are you still mad about the stupid noodle thing?”

Quinn suppressed a laugh. “Chloe, sweetheart. There is no point in carrying a grudge. Max seems like a very sweet boy who--”

“Oh my God!” Beth said, as she walked into the room and heard Quinn mentioning Max. She flopped onto the couch and pulled Chloe into a headlock. The younger girl squealed and immediately began smacking at Beth’s forearm, but considering the way Chloe squealed and laughed, it was obvious she enjoyed her sister’s attention “The noodle thing again? Get over it!”

Chloe squirmed away from her sister and stood up, her hands on her hips. “I don’t have to get over it!” she exclaimed petulantly. “Max will just have to miss me! Then he’ll be sorry!”

Quinn managed to contain her laughter for a moment, but then Beth burst into laughter so hard that she fell off the couch which made Molly start laughing as well, which in turn caused Chloe to spin on her heel, throw her hands dramatically in the air and stalk off. Once all that happened, Quinn just couldn’t help it. She laughed. It burst out of her lungs with such ferocity, she actually collapsed on the floor.

“Oh my God,” Beth said, gasping for laughter. “She is such a drama queen!” She smiled at Molly, who was still draped half-off the couch and pulled Molly toward her by her pants, ignoring Molly’s protests.

“You’re giving me a wedgie!”

Beth pulled Molly close, and wrapped her arm around Molly’s shoulders. “Don’t ever turn drama queen on me, okay, kid? Promise?”

Molly grinned and cuddled into Beth. “I promise.”

\--

Even an hour later and a threat of no TV, could not convince Chloe to write Max back. Chloe and Max had a regular schedule when it came to emails and it was days past the time Chloe should have written Max. Quinn checked her email and saw tMax had written a new email to Chloe, despite the fact he’d been the one to last send an email (in which he adamantly declared he would never ever apologize over the noodle thing because he was right and Chloe was wrong.)

\-----

To: ccchang @hotmail.com  
CC: rbjames @hotmail.com, qfchang @ hotmail.com  
From: maxmjames @ hotmail.com,  
Subject: Are you still mad?

Dear Chloe,

Are you still mad? I didn’t mean to make you so angry. I hope you will write me again. I hope everything is okay. I am really sorry about the noodle thing. I didn’t mean to start a fight. I hope you will still be my friend.

Sincerely, Max.

For whatever reason, that just tugged at Quinn’s heart and she just couldn’t let the poor kid suffer like that.

So, she logged into her daughter’s email, cursing herself for being _that_ kind of nosy parent, found Max’s email and hit reply.

 -----

To: maxmjames @ hotmail.com,  
CC: qfchang @ hotmail.com, rbjames @hotmail.com,  
From: ccchang @hotmail.com

Dear Max,

Of course we’re still friends! And I am not mad anymore. I’m sorry, too. How was your week? How’s your mom and the baby? You always seem so worried about her. Is everything okay?

Sincerely,

Chloe.

\----

Quinn hoped she was coming across as a kid. She felt a little creepy doing it, but she didn’t want her kid to get dinged on the assignment and more importantly, she didn’t want this poor kid across the country to suffer just because her kid was being petulant. Chloe would get over the noodle thing in a few days, but most kids didn’t get over hurt feelings over rejected invitations to friendship right away. And Quinn knew she had to ask about his week, or else that would just come off rude. They always asked about each other’s weeks. And well, Quinn was curious about Max’s mother and the baby. Max wrote about his mother and her pregnancy quite a bit and she sensed some anxiety there. Max had even sent Chloe some emails writing about his concern about his mother, but eliminated his mother from the CC field in the email. Sometimes, Quinn felt like she should forward it on to his mother because that was technically against the rules, but the poor kid sounded like he needed to get that off his chest without telling his mother and Quinn could sympathize with that.

A reply came almost instantly and it was longer that Quinn expected it to be and she had to wonder how fast this kid, Max, typed.

 -----

To: ccchang @hotmail.com  
CC: rbjames @hotmail.com, qfchang @ hotmail.com  
From: maxmjames @ hotmail.com,

Dear Chloe,

I’m not sure what I’ve told you about my mom and her pregnancy to make you think I’m worried. Maybe we can go over it again so I’ll remember better. Everything with my mom is okay. Everything is normal and pretty soon I am going to have a brother. My school week was good. How was your week? Is everything at school good? Are your sisters still giving you a hard time?

Sincerely, Max.

\-----

It was perverse, but Quinn felt the urge to write back. So she did.

 ----

To: maxmjames @ hotmail.com,  
CC: qfchang @ hotmail.com, rbjames @hotmail.com,  
From: ccchang @hotmail.com

Dear Max,

Well, you SAID you were worried about your mom because you heard her crying in the bathroom last week. Is she still crying a lot? How is she doing?

My school week was good, too. My sisters always give me a hard time.

Sincerely,

Chloe.

 ----

Quinn face palmed. She felt dirty writing this child. It started with the best of intentions and now look at where she got to. But then another reply came.

 ----

To: ccchang @hotmail.com  
CC: rbjames @hotmail.com, qfchang @ hotmail.com  
From: maxmjames @ hotmail.com,

Dear Chloe,

Thank you for your concern. My mom is doing okay. I didn’t remember I told you I heard her crying. You don’t need to worry about her. I am going to get ready for bed now because it is three hours later here than it is over there. Goodnight! Have a great week.

Sincerely,

Max

 ----

Oh, thank God that debacle was over. Quinn breathed a sigh of relief, covered her face with her hands and deleted the evidence. She was just going to have to figure out a plan the next time Max sent an email.

\--

 

Rachel shut her laptop, and laid back in bed and covered her eyes with her hand. She could not believe she spent all that time emailing a little girl. She just wanted to made amends on behalf of her son and it turned into this _whole_ other thing and now she was mortified for herself in a myriad of ways beginning at emailing a little girl to the fact she’d found out she’d worried her son.

She laid there for a few minutes before she got out of bed and padded down the hallway where Max and Mia were quietly building an entire city out of Lego pieces. Their dog, Arf, was running around the room, frantically trying to get their attention. But Max and Mia were used to Arf’s attention whore tendencies, and were ignoring him.

“Arf, you’re kind of being a pain,” Rachel told the dog. He gave her a pleading look and she sighed, crouched down and scratched behind his ears and scratched his belly for a while. Then she turned her attention back to her children. She sat with them and built another city with them and swore she’d never let either of them hear her cry ever again. She had to be a better mother.

\--

The next day, Quinn was horrified to see an email from Max in her inbox.

 ----

To: ccchang @hotmail.com  
CC: rbjames @hotmail.com, qfchang @ hotmail.com  
From: maxmjames @ hotmail.com,  
Subject: I’m still mad!

Dear Chloe,

My mom was the one who wrote you apologizing on my behalf. I found out about it because she forgot to delete it from my emails. I just want you to know I’m still mad and I’m right and you are wrong about the noodle thing. But I’d still like us to be friends. But I’m not sorry.

Sincerely,

Max.

 ----

Quinn did not have time to process the fact that she’d been emailing Max’s mother the night before who’d clearly had the same ideas she had. No, because at this very moment, Chloe was checking her email in the living room and…

“MOMMY!”

And there it was, that piercing shriek of outrage.

\--

Quinn wished that children came with manuals for instances such as these. But she was also fairly certain she was the only parent in the history of parents who was in this position. Well, other than Max’s mother. Quinn reminded herself that she’d have to shoot the other parent an email.

Chloe ranted for ten minutes, waving her tiny arms and occasionally putting them on her hips as she scolded Quinn. Beth laughed so uproariously about the whole thing that Quinn could hear the teenager’s giggles from three rooms down. In the living room downstairs, Molly was laughing and telling Mike about the whole thing.

It was humiliating.

It was even more humiliating when she saw the email Chloe sent Max in which she expressed her indignation over the fact that just as his mother wrote emails pretending to be him, her mother _also_ wrote the emails pretending to be her.

At least they were friends again and now the kids were exchanging rapid-fire emails about what nerds their mothers were.

 

 ---- 

To: rbjames @hotmail.com,  
From: qfchang @ hotmail.com

Hello Mrs. James

I’m so sorry about this incident with the kids. I was truly trying to help the kids patch this up. It just got out of control. I didn’t mean for things to spiral this way.

Sincerely,

Quinn Fabray-Chang.

Quinn wanted to be polite, but she did think Max’s mom was kind of a doofus for not covering up her tracks in Max’s email the way she’d done in Chloe’s. But she wasn’t sure they would have been able to get away with it anyway.

The reply came within a couple minutes.

  ----

To: qfchang @ hotmail.com  
From: rbjames @hotmail.com

Quinn FABRAY? As in from Lima, Ohio? McKinley class of 2012? QUINN FABRAY?

“What the fuck?” Quinn whispered, starting at her screen in shock. It startled Quinn so much, she actually shrieked and then covered her mouth with her hands in pure horror.

 ----

To: rbjames @hotmail.com  
From: qfchang @ hotmail.com

WHO IS THIS?

 ----

To: qfchang @ hotmail.com  
From: rbjames @hotmail.com

Rachel Berry! Oh my God, YOU’RE QF CHANG? I just assumed that the Q and F stood for some unpronounceable Chinese name like Quan Fu or some such thing!

 ----

To: rbjames @hotmail.com  
From: qfchang @ hotmail.com

You are still such a racist about Asian people.

 

 ----

To: qfchang @ hotmail.com  
From: rbjames @hotmail.com

I am not a racist, nor are you an honorary Asian person just because your surname is now Chang!

 ----

To: rbjames @hotmail.com  
From: qfchang @ hotmail.com

I’m more Asian than you

 ----

To: qfchang @ hotmail.com  
From: rbjames @hotmail.com

No, you’re just more ridiculous. You’re BARBIE-Caucasian. ‘I’m more Asian than you’ what does that even mean? **I** could pass for Asian before you could.

 ----

To: rbjames @hotmail.com  
From: qfchang @ hotmail.com

YOU’RE ridiculous. You started this whole thing. It’s your fault, weirdo!

 ----

To: qfchang @ hotmail.com  
From: rbjames @hotmail.com

I didn’t want YOUR daughter to suffer! I was merely trying to prod the children along so they could make amends. I had no idea it would turn into such a debacle and I resent the implication that I am weird and I wholly take issue with your statement that I am racist against people of Asian descent! That is practically libelous!

 ----

To: rbjames @hotmail.com  
From: qfchang @ hotmail.com

Calm down, Berry. Before you give yourself an aneurysm.

Quinn had just pushed ‘Send’ when she had three simultaneous, horrifying realizations which she’d gleaned from reading news articles.

1\. Rachel Berry married Jesse St. James  
2\. Jesse St. James was dead  
3\. Jesse St. James died of an aneurysm

Scrambling, Quinn hurriedly sent a new email.

 ----

To: rbjames @hotmail.com  
From: qfchang @ hotmail.com

I am so sorry! I didn’t mean it that way! That came out wrong. I must have regressed to high school. I am so sorry about that, Rachel. It was terrible of me.

-Quinn.

The reply came fifteen minutes later.

 ----

To: qfchang @ hotmail.com  
From: rbjames @hotmail.com

Quinn,

You might find this difficult to believe, but I wasn’t offended by that. It actually made me laugh, which is inappropriate and I will deny that I laughed if you were ever to tell anyone. In any case, I know you wouldn’t mean a sentiment so tactless and I accept your apology and also extend one of my own. It’s just that this is a highly unexpected development. I also totally understand that it was written and sent in the heat of the moment and it wasn’t something you felt or meant.

-Rachel.

 ----

To: rbjames @hotmail.com  
From: qfchang @ hotmail.com

Rachel,

It was still a horrible thing to say to anyone. I am really sorry about it. And now I can kind of laugh about the whole thing. My kid paired up with your kid. What are the odds?! I guess I should have picked up on it, but Max always dropped the St. in his emails, so I didn’t realize he was Max St. James. I thought he was just Max James. Anyway, he seems really sweet and I wrote back to him for the same reason you wrote to Chloe-- I didn’t want him to feel sad. Anyway. It seems like the kids have patched things up, so that’s good.

-Quinn.

 ---- 

To: qfchang @ hotmail.com  
From: rbjames @hotmail.com

Quinn,

The whole thing is pretty humorous once I’ve stopped to think about it. I’m not sure what the odds are, maybe I’ll have my accountant calculate it. We use just “James” for Max and Mia’s school enrollment papers because we had some problems with the paparazzi when they were in day care. It’s just easier. Anyway, I’m glad the kids appear to be patching things up. Your Chloe seems like a great girl, too. Max has really taken a shine to her and for that, I’m truly grateful. And I’m truly grateful to you for raising a child that my child can connect with.

-Rachel.

\--

The kids continued to correspond, the ‘noodle thing’ apparently forgotten. Even after the assignment ended, the kids continued to email, although they’d stopped CCing their mothers.

Quinn thought about Rachel periodically and wondered how the other woman was doing.

But she never bothered to email.

Then one night, she was bored, lonely and couldn’t sleep and she thought, what the hell, might as well email Rachel. She was kind of curious about when Rachel was due to give birth anyway.

 ----

To: rbjames @hotmail.com  
From: qfchang @ hotmail.com

Rachel,

Hey. How are you? It’s Quinn. I just wanted to see how you’re doing. When are you due?

-Quinn.

Rachel must have been awake, because the reply came minutes later.

 ----

To: qfchang @ hotmail.com  
From: rbjames @hotmail.com

Quinn,

I am very uncomfortable. I’m due next month and I can’t sleep. I could kill Jesse for doing this to me, but as you know he’s already dead. I know that sounds terrible, but I’m keeping that in there and sending it off, because I don’t see the need for social niceties at this point. How are you?

-Rachel

 ----

To: rbjames @hotmail.com  
From: qfchang @ hotmail.com

Rachel,  
  
I’m okay. I can’t sleep right now. What’s bothering you right now? I know it’s obvious why you’re uncomfortable, but what specific complaints do you have?

-Quinn

 ----

To: qfchang @ hotmail.com  
From: rbjames @hotmail.com

Quinn,

It’s just an overall discomfort. You know how hard it is to sleep during the last month of pregnancy. I can’t wait to just give birth. Why can’t you sleep? What’s been going on in your world since we graduated McKinley?

-Rachel

 ----

To: rbjames @hotmail.com  
From: qfchang @ hotmail.com

Rachel,

Oh, the usual. Went to college. Married Mike Chang. Moved to LA. Went to law school. Had Molly and Chloe. Divorced Mike Chang. Pretended to be my daughter and wrote to a nine year old boy whose mother was pretending to be him and then reflected on how a mother would truly do anything for her kid.

What’s been going on with you? Other than winning those Tonys and Grammys.

-Quinn.

 ----

To: qfchang @ hotmail.com  
From: rbjames @hotmail.com

Quinn,

The usual with me, too, to be honest. Married Jesse. Graduated college. Started to build my career. Had children. And that’s truly it for me. It all seems very banal, except for the part I pretended to be my son and wrote to an eight year old girl whose mother was pretending to be her and who also turned out to be a high school friend I lost touch with. And yes, this truly proves a mother would do anything for a child.

-Rachel.

 ----

Quinn had to suppress a laugh and hit ‘Reply’. It continued on for a while and when Quinn finally called it quits, firing off one final email to Rachel, informing her it’d been fun and enjoyable to catch up, but she needed to go to bed and also enclosed her phone number and asked for Rachel’s in return, she happened to finally spare a glance at the clock at the lower right corner of her monitor screen and shrieked in surprise and horror that she’d just emailed Rachel for the past four hours and it was now six am.

\--

She was falling asleep at work and decided to fire off a text to Rachel.

To: Rachel  
From: Quinn

I am falling asleep at work and I blame you, fully. --Quinn.

The reply came within seconds.

To: Quinn  
From: Rachel

You just woke me up from a nap. I’m very grumpy with you now. -R.

To: Rachel  
From: Quinn

You’re lucky you’re prego, or I might be annoyed that you’re napping while I’m nodding off at work.

To: Quinn  
From: Rachel

Sucks to be you.

To: Rachel  
From: Quinn

You keep at it and it might suck to be YOU.

To: Quinn  
From: Rachel

What are you going to do about it, Fabray?

To: Rachel  
From: Quinn

Don’t make me tell you, Berry.

To: Quinn  
From: Rachel

I’m sure I can take anything you dish out

To: Rachel  
From: Quinn

I’m sure you can’t.

It went on for a few more hours and Quinn could not believe she’d wasted the rest of the day texting with Rachel the way she’d wasted the entire night before. Except it really didn’t feel like such a waste.

\--

She left her office that day and picked up Molly and Chloe up from their after-school program and picked up Beth from Natasha’s. She made the kids dinner, fired off a email to Rachel which was part inflammatory (accusing Rachel of keeping her up all night), part teasing (accusing Rachel of a nefarious plot) and part concerned (genuinely curious about how Rachel was doing during this late stage in her pregnancy). She made the kids dinner, helped with homework and nagged the little ones about washing up. She checked her email and was disappointed that she didn’t get a response from Rachel to her email hours earlier. She’d gotten so accustomed to Rachel replying right away, it was a disappointment to see her email unanswered.

She went to sleep early that evening. She dreamt of a brown-eyed toddler, two years old, at the most, with curly dark hair-- lighter than black, but darker than brown with cheek dimples throwing his arms around her neck and calling her ‘mama’ before blowing a raspberry against her cheek. His weight, the heft of him in her arms felt familiar and comfortable.

She woke up and her arms ached from the absence of his weight.

She and Mike talked about having more kids, back when things were still at their best between them and they’d both agreed it would be nice, but unfeasible. It was hard enough with three. If she told him about this dream, he would undoubtedly laugh at her and tell her, “your clock is supposed to stop ticking after three kids.”

She checked her email before work, but there was no response from Rachel. Quinn bit her lip and sighed at the disappointment she felt because she knew it was ridiculous. She checked a couple times at work and again when she got home. No email. She didn’t bother hoping the next day.

But the day after that, she arrived at her office to find a gift basket waiting for her.

One of her coworkers, Chad, called out to her.

“Thank God. This person must really know you because you are _scary_ without coffee.”

“Shut it, Zinderman,”

Quinn rifled through the basket. There was a coffee mug, a few packets of gourmet instant coffee, a few packages of regular coffee, various flavored non-dairy creamers, syrups, sugar, raw sugar, Splenda, Equal, metal spoons, plastic spoons and a travel mug. It was basically anything anyone would need to make a decent cup of coffee at their office desk. Quinn grabbed the card which was typed by the company who sent it, but the sentiment was obviously from the sender.

Q,

I’ve been feeling badly about monopolizing your time. I’m between projects right now and I don’t have much to do except lay around the house. I didn’t mean to take up so much of your time and I hope you haven’t felt obliged to keep me entertained. Consider this a peace offering.

-R.

 

Quinn suppressed a smile. Fleetingly, she wondered how Rachel got her work address, but then she remembered mentioning her place of work in one of her emails. She pulled the mug out of the basket, a simple glass mug with a green leaf on it, washed it out and then poured in a packet of the instant coffee. She got some hot water from the water cooler, stirred in some non-dairy creamer, palmed her phone and walked outside to get some privacy.

She sat on a step outside her office for a while and took in a deep breath. It was stupid, but she was kind of nervous.

She flipped through the contacts of her phone and found Rachel’s name and hit ‘call.’

She took another deep breath and exhaled.

Rachel answered on the third ring.

“Hi,” Rachel said softly.

“Hi,” Quinn replied. She chuckled. The last time she heard Rachel’s voice was a week after their high school graduation. Rachel had been the first to leave Lima, unwilling to spend even one more unnecessary day in their hometown. There’d been a party at Puck’s to bid her farewell.

“This is weird,” Rachel murmured.

“Really weird,” Quinn agreed.

“But not awful.”

“No, not awful.”

\--

After getting off the phone with Quinn, with whom she talked with for an _hour_ , Rachel put the song, ‘Tango: Maureen’ on repeat, partly because she felt fat and ugly due to being ginormously pregnant and she’d played Maureen on Broadway year before and therefore needed to hearken back to days when she felt more desirable, but mostly for that one part in the beginning in which the characters agreed with one another that ‘this was weird’/’fucking weird!’

This thing with Quinn Fabray, whatever it was, was _weird_ , really fucking weird, but it wasn’t awful.

\--

She tried to be mindful of Quinn’s time even though Quinn insisted there was no reason for Rachel to worry.

She’d alienated people after Jesse died. It was hard for her the handle their sympathy and so she’d shut herself away and shut the world out. People she barely knew flocked around her, asking her if she wanted anything, if she needed anything and she just clutched her children close.

“Call Ceci.”

But somehow despite the fact that everyone from her children’s pediatrician to her dry cleaner checked in on her, her best friend did not. She thought she would gain strength from the others, make new friendships and alliances, but the betrayal of having her best friend just _leave_ her when she needed her most was too much. She sank into exile and eventually, people stopped trying to get her out. But she’d never forget those months when friends, acquaintances and near-strangers showed her so much kindness.

She didn’t mind being alone though. She spent most of her life alone-- it was only recently that her life became so filled with people-- husband, children, castmates, friends, Mommy-and-Me-classmates, acquaintances from infant CPR class, etc. She needed the time alone.

Sometimes, her bed felt too empty and she hugged his pillow close and thought about what it would be like if Jesse were still here.

He was tender with her when she was pregnant, to the degree she would laugh at him and gently tease him for it.

“What can I do, short of becoming impregnated, that you will be this nice to me all the time?”

He’d laugh and stroke her belly. “That’s my kid in there. I have to make sure you’re careful.” He beamed at her. “You’re having my baby! Good times never seemed so good.”

She’d laugh. “Please don’t serenade me with Neil Diamond. It’s been done before. Though I am a fan of Paul Anka, but it’s very difficult to cover a Paul Anka song well.”

He’d sniff, appalled. “Please don’t compare me with some high school boyfriend.”

“ _You’re_ a high school boyfriend.”

“I’m your high school sweetheart,” he’d correct. “There’s an inherent difference between a high school sweetheart and a high school boyfriend. Hierarchically, I’d be vastly higher, even if you weren’t my wife.”

She’d burst into laughter. “You are not my high school sweetheart. You’re delusional!”

He’d scowl, and then they’d both laugh.  
She sighed. She missed him. She wasn’t sure how she was going to manage this baby without him.

In the past, when she had food cravings, and they weren’t readily on-hand in their kitchen, he would run out to get it, regardless of time of night and regardless of how unlikely it was to procure.

Being alone like this was harder than she thought it would be, especially considering it’d been a very long time since she had to be so alone.

\--

When they were dating, he was the centre of her world-- at least for a while. In their early days, she’d been very young and her eye began to wander, just as his did.

There’d been another boy-- an utterly inconsequential boy. He was inconsequential even back then, and he was certainly inconsequential now. She had kissed him in a moment of weakness fueled by strawberry margarita-flavored Jell-o shots. She confessed to Jesse shortly thereafter and he’d turned red, slammed his hand on a wall and screamed “shit!” She wept and apologized as he shouted “how could you do this to me?!”

He stormed out and she thought it was over, but he turned up hours later and slipped a ring on her finger.

“You’re mine! Only mine! You can’t go around kissing other boys!”

She was barely 21 when she married him and she knew going into the marriage they _both_ knew it was primarily an impetuous act of passion by two people who were too afraid to lose one another. She never regretted the marriage, but she often wished they’d put it off until they were both ready-- maybe that was why Jesse continued to cheat.

“It’s not you, it’s me,” he’d insist each time he’d confess. “It’s not personal.”

But how did someone not take that personally? And of course, she knew she had a choice, because hello, she was still relatively young. She could have left him. But she had two kids with him and she loved him and she felt trapped by that.

She still had their wedding photo on her nightstand. She looked at the two kids in that photograph and it looked like two teenagers playing dress up. It was ridiculous how young they both looked. He had his showface grin on, with his arm around her and the smile on her face was so big, it looked like her face would crack in half.

When she looked at that picture, she saw two terrified kids barely out of their teens. Those smiles were only half real, and while she’d been happy, she’d known even then that they were rushing.

It was weird, but that boy she kissed, the one she cheated on Jesse with, she didn’t even remember his name. He was that inconsequential. But she was certain that he’d changed the course of her life, because if it hadn’t been for that indiscretion with him, it was likely there would have been no indiscretion at all-- he’d been convenient and she’d been drunk (a very rare occurrence). It was likely she and Jesse would have married eventually, but definitely not so soon and maybe their relationship would have been better for it. So maybe this boy wasn’t so inconsequential after all.

\--

She didn’t exactly remember just how painful childbirth was for her, just that it was mindblowingly painful despite being hopped up on drugs. Forgetting the pain of childbirth was really the only way a woman could have multiple children. But she had a very clear memory of herself screaming “I hate you! I hate you! You suck! You’re doing this next time!” at Jesse while she was in labor with both her children.

And now she wouldn’t be able to do that with the birth of her third.

She stared at her wedding photo and felt something in her crack.

“You suck. I hate you!” she sniffled, stroking Jesse’s face in the picture. “This was supposed to be you having this baby not me,” she said petulantly.

She tried her best not to cry once she learned Max had heard her cry. But the kids weren’t home and she’d been so emotional lately. Once the urge to cry was felt, she just couldn’t stave it off anymore. She was sobbing her way through the last quarter of her box of tissues, when her phone rang. Out of pure instinct, she reached for her phone to answer it, despite the fact she was still a sobbing mess, but then decided against answering it. Then she saw Quinn’s name on her caller ID. She hesitated for a moment, ready to answer it, but then changed her mind again because she didn’t want to talk to anyone when she was like this.

She let it go to voicemail.

Her phone beeped to announce the message. She grabbed a tissue to blow her nose and then grabbed her phone to listen to it.

_Hi Rachel. It’s Quinn. I just thought of you, so I decided to call you and see how you’re doing. You know how to reach me if you need anything._

Rachel blew her nose again and tossed the used tissue into the trash can next to her bed. She laid on her back and stared up at the ceiling, wondering how the hell she could get pregnant and then have her husband die on her.

\--

She decided against calling Quinn back right away. She knew it was impolite and against etiquette, but she was too emotional to really talk to anyone and she was trying to get it together before she had to pick the kids up from school. She didn’t think she’d be able to do that if she had to pretend to someone that she was okay when she wasn’t.

She hated being pregnant. But she hated being pregnant, alone, even more.  
  
\--

She put on her showface when it was time to pick up the kids and stopped to get them some ice cream on the way home. Someone shoved a camera in her face and snapped a picture and she felt a wave of ire that she stamped down. She didn’t need to come across as unbalanced, but she hated it that paparazzi did not seem to respect the privacy of her children. She wasn’t Angelina Jolie and Jesse wasn’t Brad Pitt, but they got their fair share of paparazzi even before they had the kids, but once they were born, it wasn’t uncommon to have photographers shove cameras in their faces as one of them would walk the kids to school. She and Jesse had both won two Tony awards each, as well as a Grammy for a song they’d penned and performed together. They’d both acted in television shows and movies, but they were primarily known as Broadway actors. But they still had their fair share of aggressive photographers. After Jesse died, Rachel figured out creative ways to get away from the paparazzi when the kids were with her because she didn’t want them to be more exposed than they already were. But this guy must have just been lurking around.

She was upset when she got home, because unlike Tom Cruise and other celebrities, she really didn’t want people to know what her kids looked like. She was proud of her kids and she felt completely unbiased that they were the most gorgeous kids alive. But she didn’t like the idea of anyone with internet access being able to know what her kids looked like. It made her a little uneasy, for whatever reason, and she had way too many nightmares about Lindbergh baby scenarios in her head.

She was washing the post-dinner dishes when Max wandered into the kitchen.

“Mom?”

“Yes, baby?”

“Can I Skype with Chloe? She asked if we could. Her mom said it was okay as long as it was okay with you.”

Rachel chuckled. “Sure, baby. Let me set it up, okay?”

“Okay,” he agreed.

She rinsed off the dish she’d just sponged off and set it in the dish rack. She dried her hands and followed after her son who was dragging her toward the computer by the hand.

She set up the camera and microphone, logged into the application and within seconds, she was looking at Quinn Fabray and her twin girls. Max waved eagerly at Chloe and Mia tried to push her way into the frame to wave as well.

Rachel tucked a hair behind her ear self-consciously. Quinn looked gorgeous and Rachel wished she’d thought about at least putting on some lip balm or something before she decided to get in front of a camera. The last month of pregnancy was not known for its advantageous effects on one’s beauty and Rachel did not feel she was an exception.

“Hi,” Rachel said softly, adjusting the camera so that it was level with Max. “Are we good?” she asked, peering into the camera.

“You’re good,” Quinn said. “Hi, Rachel.”

“Hi Quinn,” Rachel said softly.

“Hi Max!” Chloe chirped.

Max grinned. “Hi, Chloe.” He smiled at the other girl on the screen. “Hi Molly.”

“Hi,” Molly said with a smile.

“Hi! I’m Mia!” Mia tried to burst into the frame of the webcam.

Quinn laughed softly. “Hi, Mia,” she murmured. “I’m Chloe and Molly’s mom.”

“Hi, Mia,” Chloe and Molly greeted.

“You okay, Rachel?” Quinn asked quietly.

“I’m fine,” Rachel said with a smile. “I have some dishes I need to finish up with, so I’m just going to leave the kids to…” she shrugged.

“Okay,” Quinn said softly.

Rachel returned to the kitchen and resumed the chore of washing dishes, an activity Rachel found tedious, but also cathartic. She finished the last of the dinner dishes and then wiped down the table and counter tops. She was scrubbing the sink for the third time that day when Mia patted her on the hip to get her attention.

“Mommy? Chloe’s Mommy wants to say hi to you.”

Rachel suppressed a soft laugh because when Mia said ‘hi’ she’d exclaimed it and threw her hand out in a princess wave.

“Okay, baby,” she murmured.

She felt a little awkward as she waddled to the chair and sat herself down with some difficulty. She felt self-conscious-- she was wearing no makeup, her lips were a little chapped and she had a pimple on her chin. This wasn’t how she wanted to look when she saw Quinn, so it was genuinely mortifying. She couldn’t quite look into the camera, so she kept her gaze downward.

“Hi,” Rachel said softly.

Quinn laughed. “Hey,” she drawled. “You’re…glowy,” she said sweetly. “You look good pregnant.”

Rachel looked at her dubiously. “I look like an elephant.”

“I wanted to ask,” Quinn said quietly. “Are you okay? Do you need anything?”

Rachel gave her a genuinely wide smile. It was touching Quinn even cared. “I’m fine, Quinn,” she assured. “Thank you for asking and I assure you I have everything I need.”

Max and Mia surrounded Rachel and kissed her cheek. “Goodnight, Mom,” Max murmured. “I’m going to take a shower, okay?”

Rachel nodded. “Okay, son.”

“And then me,” Mia chimed in.

Rachel grinned. “Okay, daughter.”

Mia ran off to her bedroom while Max walked off to the bathroom. Rachel watched them leave the room and when she turned back to her monitor and saw Chloe and Molly were both out of the frame.

“Where are the girls?”

“In their room,” Quinn informed her. “So, really. Now that we’re alone. How are you really doing?”

Rachel fought a small smile. “I’m really fine,” she murmured. “Thank you for your concern.” She peeked through her eyelashes and smiled again at Quinn.

Quinn smiled back.

\--

Quinn stretched her legs and realized she’d talked with Rachel for two hours. Rachel was slow to talk at first-- she was subdued and hesitant, which was incredibly unnerving. But soon Rachel was back to her talkative self and two hours passed as they talked, reminisced and laughed before Quinn realized it-- and only because her legs were stiff from sitting down for so long in the same position.

What the hell was it with this woman that Quinn was wiling away _hours_ of her time without realizing it?

“God,” Quinn said, running a hand through her hair. “I need to get ready for bed and get some work done before I go to sleep.”

Rachel turned her head to the right, clearly looking at a wall clock and her eyes widened in visible surprise. Her hands flew to her mouth.. “Oh no!” she said, visibly distressed.

“What’s wrong?” Quinn asked. “Did you forget to do something?”

“No! I just…I didn’t mean to take up so much of your time.”

“Oh,” Quinn said with a slight nod of her head. “Well, you didn’t. It’s okay, and it’s even later for you. Are you going to go to bed now?”

“Yes,” Rachel said. She smiled shyly. “It was good to see you again,” she said, making air quotes around the word ‘see.’

“It was good to see you again, too,” Quinn said. “The kids should do this again sometime.”

Rachel smiled. “Yes. They should.”

\--

The next day, when Quinn picked up her girls, they were already clamoring to talk to Max and Mia again via Skype.

It was a little late by the time they were done with dinner because of the three hour time difference and her girls went to bed disappointed. It tore Quinn’s heart out because her girls were pretty low-maintenance and the thought she couldn’t give them something so simple made her feel bad. Once she got the kids into bed, Quinn immediately went to her room and texted Rachel.

To: Rachel  
From: Quinn

Hi, are you awake?

Quinn’s phone rang approximately ten minutes later. Smiling, she answered the phone.

“Hi Rachel.”

“I’m awake,” Rachel drawled.

Quinn laughed softly. “The girls wanted to Skype with Max and Mia tonight, but it was already six when I picked them up so it was way too late for you guys.”

“Yeah,” Rachel agreed. “But maybe tomorrow? It’s Friday.”

“The girls have a sleepover,” Quinn said regretfully. “Saturday?”

“Sure,” Rachel said. “I--” she trailed off as she became distracted by a flutter in her belly. It wasn’t a kick-- she was used to that, it felt more like a tickle. Like her baby was tickling her from the inside. She put her hand over her belly.

“What? What is it? Rachel, are you okay?” Quinn’s voice was alarmed, concerned.

Rachel laughed softly. “I’m fine,” she said. “I just…the baby…”

“He kicked?”

Rachel shook her head. “It’s more like he was tickling me from the inside. You know the feeling.”

Quinn chuckled. “You sounded kind of freaked out. You had me worried,” she confessed.

Rachel shrugged. “It’s always a little disconcerting,” she conceded. She paused. “Now I can’t remember what I was saying. But let’s definitely let the kids Skype the day after tomorrow. Maybe 4pm your time, 7pm mine?”

“Can we push it back an hour?”

Rachel smiled. “Sure. So I guess we’ll be seeing each other the day after tomorrow. Sort of anyway.”

Quinn laughed. “Yeah.” She paused. “Are you really okay, Rachel?” she asked. Chloe showed her some of Max’s emails, and Rachel’s son just seemed so _worried_ about her. He seemed like a kind-hearted boy who was close to his mother, but Quinn thought there had to be a reason why Max seemed so worried.

Rachel paused. “Yes, why are you so insistent on asking me that question, Quinn?”

“Max seems worried about you,” Quinn said honestly. “And I can’t imagine it’s easy for you to be dealing with this pregnancy on your own.”

Rachel tucked her lower lip between her teeth and lightly bit down. She didn’t quite know how to handle that. “It’s not ideal,” she agreed, her voice lowering without her realizing she was doing it. Her eyes pricked with tears because it was hard dealing with it on her own. “But I’m okay.” She cleared her throat. “What did Max say?”

“He said he was worried about you,” Quinn said dryly. She paused. “He just told Chloe you seemed sad and she told me,” she said gently. “Rachel, I don’t want to make you angry, especially while you’re pregnant, but if you need some help, it’s better you’re honest about it because your kids--”

“Don’t finish that thought,” Rachel growled in warning. “This is all I’ve been hearing for months. I’m not claiming perfection, but I’m doing well enough. They may have seen me cry one night here and there, but I am _not_ neglecting my children because I’m _sad_.” Rachel’s voice wavered ever so slightly. “We’re doing okay. Max and Mia lost their dad, but _we’re_ doing okay. I’m not a bad mom!”

“I never said you were,” Quinn murmured, her voice placating. “Max and Mia seem great and that’s a reflection of you. I just thought if I were in your position, I’d be having a hard time. And I’m _asking_ as Chloe’s mom to the mother of Chloe’s friend if you need anything. That’s all.”

Rachel swallowed. “Sorry,” she said, contrite. “It’s just…people have been asking about this for months, implying like I can’t handle this and I _can_. I can do this.”

“Of course,” Quinn said softly, because if there was one thing she learned in high school, it was that Rachel was stronger than she looked. “I know. But if you need anything, call, text, whatever me.” She paused, wanting to shift gears. “Have you thought of names for the baby??”

“Christopher,” Rachel replied immediately. “It’s Jesse’s middle name. And Byron as the middle name, but only because I promised Jesse’s mother. It’s her maiden name. I’m not all that attached to it, but I promised her. She wanted me to use Jesse so the baby could be a junior, but that’s not something Jesse ever wanted. We talked about it when we had Max and Jesse was _sure_ Max would follow in our footsteps and he wanted his son to be able to make a name for _himself_.”

Quinn smiled fondly. “I really can’t imagine your son wanting to be an actor.” She didn’t really know Max, but he didn’t seem like he was that interested in acting.

Rachel chuckled. “I know,” she agreed. “He wants to be an astronaut.”

“I can definitely see Mia as an actress though,” Quinn offered.

Rachel laughed. “Yes,” she agreed. “Me too.”

Quinn hesitated. “So who’s going to be in the delivery room with you?”

Rachel made a face at the sheer prospect. Many people asked her that question as she got closer to her due date and being asked multiple times didn’t make the truth any easier to swallow “My mom,” she muttered, her voice reflecting her dissatisfaction at that.

“Shelby?”

“Yes,” Rachel said flatly.

“You don’t sound happy about it.”

Rachel shrugged, which she knew was dumb considering she was talking to Quinn on the phone. “She may be my mother, but she was closer to Jesse. She was more a mom to him than she was to me and the only reason she wants to be in the delivery room with me is because she thinks of the kids as her grandkids. Which, I can concede they are. But she thinks of them as her grandkids because of Jess, not me. So I don’t really welcome her presence.”

“You can’t ask anyone else?”

Rachel was quiet for a long moment. “There are other people I could ask,” she said, her voice quivering. “But…” she trailed off. Cecilia was her best friend and in those first awful days after Jesse died, Rachel had been certain Cecilia would turn up. But Cecilia never did and never returned any of her calls. It was especially painful because Ceci was the godmother to both Max and Mia. Cecilia was at the hospital for the birth of both Max and Mia and if _anyone_ other than Jesse had to be with her in the delivery room, Rachel would want it to be Cecilia and Rachel found Ceci’s abandonment to be a little…bewildering. And, of course, it hurt to be abandoned yet again in her life. But what did it matter now?

“But what?” Quinn prompted.

“It doesn’t really matter,” Rachel said softly. “If it’s not Jesse, it could be anyone or no one. It doesn’t really matter. My mom and I are okay now anyway, so it would be nice to have her there.”

Rachel sounded resigned to Quinn’s ears, but Quinn decided not to push it because despite the fact they’d recently been communicating _a lot_ lately, they still weren’t necessarily friends.

“You’re going to be awesome,” Quinn said sincerely. Partly because she knew it was true, and partly because this is just what one said to a pregnant woman.

Rachel snorted. “Well, of course I am, Quinn,” Rachel said with a trace of her good-natured arrogance. “Everything I do is awesome. You’ve seen my children, we could change our surnames to Awesome. If we were a family of traveling musicians, we could be The Awesomes. If we were a family of superheroes, we would be Team Awesome. If there were one adjective to describe us as a family, it would be--”

“I get it,” Quinn interrupted dryly. “Awesome.”

“Actually, I was going to say Awesomeness.”

Quinn suppressed a snort of derision. “You’re so ridiculous.”

“I can certainly concede someone may believe that, as inaccurate as it may be.”

Quinn heaved a loud sigh. She pinched the bridge of her nose between her thumb and forefinger. She didn’t know how she could go from being worried about Rachel because the brunette seemed so vulnerable to being infuriated with Rachel because Rachel was so…well, infuriating. Normally, she would have just called out the other person, but Rachel was _extremely_ pregnant and that would just be unwise.

“Yes,” Quinn agreed. “Your family can be Team Awesome.”

Rachel laughed softly and Quinn felt good about going along with Rachel Berry’s insanity. “You and the girls can be honorary members of Team Awesome,” she murmured. “I can concede your awesomeness, too.”

Quinn laughed. “Well, thanks,” she said dryly.

“Of course, Quinn. I--” Rachel trailed off.

“Rachel?”

“Fuck,” Rachel said softly, though she sounded slightly muffled. There was a soft thump and then there was silence. The call was still connected, but there was silence.

Panic rose up. A pregnant woman in the final stages of her pregnancy could not just utter ‘fuck’ and then go silent like that!

“Rachel? Rachel!” Quinn shouted Rachel’s name for a few minutes and then hung up and called back. It rang, but then went to voicemail.

Half an hour later, Quinn was on the verge of losing her mind and ready to call the police to send someone to do a welfare check, when Rachel called her back.

“I’m _so_ sorry,” Rachel burst out in apology before Quinn could utter a word when she answered. “I got distracted!”

“Distracted?! By what?!”

“Max,” Rachel said softly. “I heard the TV on in the living room. He should have been in bed. He…” she cleared her throat. “We put together a memorial video for Jesse for the funeral and after he died, Max wouldn’t stop watching it. He’d just watch it over and over again. I finally had to hide it because he was watching it so much. He hasn’t done it in a few months, but he did it tonight. So I had to go and get him to go to bed.”

“Oh,” Quinn said softly. “Sorry,” she murmured. “I thought maybe something was wrong with the baby and that’s why…”

“Everything is fine,” Rachel said quietly. “Really,” she added. “But thank you so much for your concern,” she said sincerely. “I’m tired though, so I’m going to go to bed now. Are we still on for Saturday so the kids can have a Skype date?”

Quinn smiled. “Sure,” she said.

“See you then, Quinn.”

“See you then, Rachel.”


	3. Chapter 3

 

A few weeks later, Quinn was in her office one afternoon when she got a text from Rachel.

To: Quinn  
From: Rachel

Baby Chris is here! We’re both great-- R, xoxo

Attached was a picture of the infant and Quinn released a tiny, involuntary shriek.

“What’s up?” Lorraine, a coworker, asked, looking at Quinn curiously.

Quinn blushed. “My friend had her baby.”

Lorraine smiled. “What did she have?”

Quinn smiled back. “A boy.”

“Tell her congratulations.”

Lorraine walked away and Quinn turned her attention back to her phone. She texted Rachel back.

To: Rachel  
From: Quinn

Rachel! He’s beautiful. -Q.

The kids were already excited when Quinn picked them up from daycare and Beth up from Natasha’s. Beth pulled Quinn’s phone from her purse since Quinn’s purse was resting at Beth’s feet on the floor of the passenger seat. She opened Rachel’s text and wrinkled her nose.

“He’s not that cute.”

From the backseat, Molly and Chloe released horrified, simultaneous gasps.

“He’s a baby! Babies are cute!”

Quinn made a face at her oldest daughter. “Beth, the baby was born late last night. He was hours old when that picture was taken. Babies aren’t really cute for at least a few months.”

“You said I was gorgeous when I was born,” Beth accused.

“ _You_ were. It was weird.”

“Were we gorgeous when we were born?” Molly and Chloe asked.

“You looked like aliens,” Beth said bluntly. “Hairy monkey aliens.”

Molly and Chloe shrieked in outrage.

“You were both gorgeous,” Quinn soothed. But Beth was kind of right. Because Beth was so gorgeous and perfect when she was born, she’d just assumed that all babies were cute like that, at least, any babies _she’d_ have. But when the twins were born, they were covered in hair, and were red, wrinkly and a little misshapen and Quinn burst into tears because she truly believed she gave birth to ugly little monkey babies who resembled old men. But she fell in love anyway and within a few months, they lost their alien look and then became too gorgeous for Quinn to bear.

“Can we visit the baby?” Chloe asked.

“Oh! Can we?” Molly said eagerly.

“Please?!”

“New York?” Beth asked, perking up. “Yes! That would be awesome. Come on, Mom. You have vacation in like, two weeks, right? And it’s _summer_ for us. What were you planning on doing anyway? Let’s go to New York! I’ve never been!”

“I was planning on sending you to your father and having a staycation,” Quinn answered honestly.

Beth stared at her and once they were at a stoplight, Quinn stared back. She cracked a grin. “Let me ask Mike,” Quinn said.

“Daddy won’t mind,” Beth said.

“And I’ll have to ask your dad, too.”

“Dad won’t mind,” Beth said confidently. “He never minds.”

In actuality, Puck _did_ mind, particularly because Beth addressed Mike as “Daddy.” But Quinn knew that both Mike and Puck would give permission.

“Let me think about it.”

\--

When Quinn thought about it, it didn’t take _that_ much convincing. It’d been a while since they’d gone anywhere on vacation. In the past, before the divorce, they’d gone on plenty of family vacations, usually to the typical places a family living in Southern California went to-- the Grand Canyon, Yosemite, San Francisco and the like. They’d even left the country, going to Cabo San Lucas, Costa Rica, Puerto Rico and in one instance, China. But somehow, they’d never made it to New York. The kids seemed excited, Puck was fine with it and Mike was completely on board.

The only thing would be to get Rachel’s \blessing. Even if Rachel did not want to meet up, Quinn still wanted to take her girls to New York, but it would seem kind of weird to visit and not drop in on Rachel and her kids at the very least.

“Are you being real?” Rachel asked, when Quinn brought it up. “Or is this idle planning that never comes to fruition?”

“I mean it.”

“Then, of course you can come! I know Max and Mia would love to meet the girls in person. Do you know where you’re staying? Do you want to stay with us? You should stay with us. I just need to think of sleeping arrangements. We have an extra room, so you should have that one. Beth can have Max’s room, and the twins can have Mia’s room. Max and Mia can be in my room with the baby and the baby’s obviously still sleeping with me. Or Max and Mia can have my room and I can take the couch and I can bring the crib into the living room since it’s on casters. Or perhaps there is some other configuration that is escaping me. I need to ruminate on this, and by ruminate, I obviously mean ‘pondering’ and not ‘chewing cud.’”

“I think we should stay in a hotel,” Quinn said. It would be nice to save money, but she wasn’t sure she could last more than a day listening to Rachel speak like _that_ , although having Rachel babble at breakneck speed was infinitely preferable to when Rachel seemed subdued and depressed. “I don’t want to kick anyone out of their room, and we’re going to be there for eight days and seven nights, which is way too long for house guests.”

“I disagree,” Rachel said, “I think it gives people ample time to connect with one another which is the whole point of visiting. But I respect your decision, and would just like to let you know that if you need a place to stay, our home is available.”

Quinn smiled, and when she spoke her voice was warm. “I know,” she said. “Thank you.” She paused. “I thought your mom was with you to help take care of you and the baby.”

“She is,” Rachel said, sounding a little exasperated. “She will not leave me alone. She’s staying with a friend because that’s for the best, but she was over here yesterday while I was trying to clean mildew off the bathroom ceiling. So I was standing on the edges of our tub and--”

“You were standing on the edge of your tub?!” Quinn repeated incredulously. “That’s so stupid!”

“I’m very coordinated, Quinn. I have an excellent sense of balance, one might even call it preternatural. I’ve always been inclined toward athleticism.”

“Yes, that’s why you were always falling on the floor in glee.”

“That was one time and Miss Holliday buttered the floor! Those were unusual circumstances.”

“ _I_ didn’t fall.”

“Forewarned is forearmed, Quinn. You were aware, I was not.”

“Whatever, it was still dumb of you to do that. You just gave birth, like, four days ago. You should be resting. Weren’t you sore?”

“No, I’m fine. It’s weird, but I am a very fast healer. It’s like I’m Wolverine.”

Quinn had a sudden image of 5’2” Rachel Berry with the Wolverine haircut and the claws and stifled a laugh. “Well, Wolverine,” Quinn said dryly. “I hope your mom ripped you a new one for being stupid.”

“You’re taking her side?” Rachel demanded indignantly.

“Yeah, so get over it.”

Rachel huffed.”Quinn, she is very bossy!”

“So, it’s hereditary then?” Quinn joked.

Rachel squeaked with outrage and Quinn laughed.

“Look,” Quinn said softly. “Not to bring you down, but your kids need you to be healthy. They’ve got _one_ parent and that’s you. They need their mom and you could have hurt yourself getting up there when you weren’t at your best. I get it-- you and your mom don’t have the best relationship, but she’s right on this one. Not you.”

Rachel was quiet. “Yeah, okay,” she muttered grudgingly, finally.

She sounded distinctly less enthused and Quinn could _hear_ the tears in her voice, so she felt like a jerk. But it kind of had to be said.

“So,” Quinn said. “What do you have planned for us when we visit? I know you’re already making an agenda. I heard all that typing, you know.”

Rachel released an embarrassed half-squeal, half-laugh. “I’ve divided it into several categories-- the tourist musts, the hidden gems, our favorite places and landmarks of emotional importance to me.”

Quinn sat back and just listened to Rachel speak. She shook her head. What did she get herself into?

\--

Quinn liked New York well enough, at least, on the occasions she had to visit it. But it wasn’t a place she thought she could embrace as her own.

When she first saw the flash of brown hair, Quinn began waving and she was actually honest-to-God _excited_. And then she realized it was _Shelby_ and not Rachel. There was no way those two could ever deny being related.

Beth stared at Shelby in awe. “Wow,” she said. “My bio teacher was _not_ lying about genetics. You are seriously her mother.”

Quinn chortled and Shelby laughed gently. She helped load their suitcases into the car that Quinn assumed was Rachel’s, given the gold star hanging from the rearview mirror.

They made it to Rachel’s apartment within twenty minutes and they traipsed in following after Shelby.

There was a sign hanging in the living room which read: WELCOME, QUINN, BETH, MOLLY AND CHLOE.

Max and Mia were sitting on the couch, thumb-wrestling with one another.

Quinn and her children followed Shelby into the apartment just as Mia yanked her hand away from Max, leaped to her feet and put her hands on her hips. “I’m never playing this game with you again!”

Unseen, but clearly within earshot, Rachel’s voice boomed through the apartment, “be nice!”

Quinn suppressed a smile, thinking it was hilariously fitting that she would _hear_ Rachel before seeing her, because Rachel tended to be heard before she was seen.

Max and Mia saw them at the same time and immediately began calling out for Rachel.

“Mommy, they’re here!” Mia yelled.

“Mom! Hurry up!” Max called out.

Rachel walked into the living room, clutching an infant to her chest. Her eyes scanned the room and when she caught sight of her visitors, she beamed. “Sorry, I wasn’t in here when you got here,” she apologized. “I was changing the baby.”

“I’ll take him,” Shelby murmured softly, stepping toward Rachel and reaching for the baby.

Rachel hesitated before she passed the infant to Shelby.

“Wash your hands,” Quinn told her children who were eyeing the baby with far too much interest. They’d just come from the airport and she just wanted to be on the safe side.

“We’ll show you,” Max offered, and all the children moved toward the bathroom while Shelby took the baby into the kitchen to get another bottle for the baby.

“Hi,” Rachel said, moving toward Quinn. This was the first time since high school they’d laid eyes on each other in person and it was kind of weird despite all the emailing, texting, phone calls and Skype sessions they’d had before this meeting. She felt awkward, like her body was just too big.

“Hi,” Quinn replied, smiling.

They moved closer to one another and stood in front of one another for a moment before they each awkwardly reached out their arms toward one another. They exchanged embarrassed smiles before their bodies melded together in a hug. They pulled apart quickly, each feeling a little awkward.

“Come on, I’d like for you to meet my little man,” Rachel said with a grin, taking Quinn by the hand and leading her toward the kitchen where Shelby was feeding Christopher.

\--

Quinn washed her hands at the sink in the kitchen. Shelby passed the infant to Quinn, a bit reluctantly in Quinn’s opinion, and handed Quinn the bottle. It’d been a long time since she had do this and she had to admit, she was a little intimidated.

He was still so small, and so Quinn couldn’t help but be a little terrified. But she also couldn’t resist holding him close and breathing in that baby smell and pressing a kiss to his forehead.

“He’s beautiful,” Quinn said sincerely.

The children entered the kitchen and Molly, Chloe and Beth immediately surrounded Quinn, peering down at the baby.

“He’s cute,” Beth noted. She was interested, but clearly only very distantly. Quinn had to admit this was a big relief. With Beth being so close in age to when Quinn became pregnant with her, Quinn was a little anxious about Beth following in her footsteps.

“He’s perfect,” Molly murmured in awe, which earned her approving looks from Rachel, Shelby, Max and Mia.

The doorbell rang and Rachel clapped her hands. “Alexis and Eddie are here,” she said, scampering to answer the door.

“Jesse’s nephew and niece,” Shelby explained. “They live a few blocks away. They’re about your age,” she said, addressing Beth. “Rachel invited them over because she hoped you would find something in common because she was worried you would be bored.”

Beth rolled her eyes. “Yeah, my new BFFs,” she said, but her tone was very mild.

Rachel walked back into the kitchen with two teenagers in tow.

“Oh crap,” Beth said softly.

Quinn looked up at the newly arrived teenagers and suppressed a smile. Alexis was wearing the same shirt as Beth.

Yeah, Beth would be fine.

\--

When she was just emailing, texting, Skypeing or talking to Rachel on the phone, the words came freely and flowed easily. But now that they were together in the same room, they couldn’t seem to find anything to talk about. The kids were around, so luckily, there were no quiet moments, but in terms of really addressing one another, their interaction was fairly minimal.

Beth, Alexis and Eddie wandered off into the spare bedroom to watch TV and hang out while the others stayed in the living room. Everything was fine for a few hours until Shelby left to take the younger children to do some sight-seeing with the promise they’d come back by dinner, so they could all eat together.

Left with just Rachel and the baby in Rachel’s living room, Quinn had to admit she felt a little uncomfortable. This was not her best idea. She sat in an easy chair while Rachel sat across the room on the sofa, holding her son. The TV was on for background noise, but neither of them were committed to watching or listening to anything that was unfolding on the screen.

“This is awkward,” Rachel commented when it’d been too quiet between them for too long.

“So awkward,” Quinn agreed.

Rachel smiled, clearly amused. “Do you want to go into my bedroom? I can stay here and we can communicate via text message. We both seem very adept at that.”

“I’m not wasting my text messages on you when you’re right there,” Quinn said with a tiny grin.

“Are you saying communicating with me is a waste?” Rachel huffed, though she smiled at Quinn.

“When it’s through text and we’re in the same apartment, yes,” Quinn said. She paused. “Maybe even just in general,” she joked, cracking a smile.

Rachel hurled a throw pillow at Quinn, who caught it, settled it in her lap and rested her hands on top of it.

“Thanks so much for your hospitality,” Quinn said sarcastically.

“You’re welcome,” Rachel shot back.

“You suck as a hostess.”

“You suck as a guest.”

“I guess we’re even then.”

“I guess we are,” Rachel said with an easy smile. “But I promise to make it up to you.”

Quinn raised an eyebrow. “Under-promise, over-deliver, Rachel. That’s my motto.”

“I tend to just state things as they are,” Rachel said. “And I promise to make it up to you.”

“Is there a money-back guarantee? Can I get that in writing?”

“My verbal promise isn’t enough?”

Quinn pretended to think about it. “Let’s revisit this in a few days.”

Rachel grinned. “I’m amenable to that.”

They were quiet for a brief moment and then Rachel spoke again.

“It’s weird,” Rachel mused. “But I’ve missed you.” She paused again. “Not all this time, of course. I hadn’t thought about you since we left high school,” she said bluntly. “But once we started talking again, I started to miss you. That’s weird, isn’t it?”

“No. You’d be an idiot _not_ to miss me.”

“I’ve always enjoyed your sense of self-importance.”

Quinn grinned. “Hello, Kettle. It’s Pot calling. You’re black.”

Rachel laughed. “I’m sincerely glad you’re here,” she said with a smile. “I promise, I’ll make sure you all have a great time.”

Quinn smiled back. “I’m really not worried about that,” she said honestly.

They talked for a few more hours, and Quinn settled next to Rachel on the couch to coo over the baby who spent most of his time sleeping. She held him close and breathed in that luxurious baby smell and could not resist rubbing her nose into his cheek. He made a tiny noise, somewhere between contentment and protest-- a tiny little series of exhalations of breath “ah ah ah” and Quinn and Rachel shared a smile.

They eventually lapsed into silence as they watched a movie on the Lifetime network.

“I know each of these movies follows the same basic plot points,” Rachel said, her eyes glued to the screen. “But they’re just different enough to keep me interested.”

“I know,” Quinn admitted, blushing.

At dinner time, the teenagers walked back into the living room.

“We’re _starving_ ,” Alexis announced. “We were thinking of getting pizza and bringing it back. Is that cool, Rach?”

“Sure. Come here and get some money out of my purse.”

Alexis walked toward Rachel and paused to lean down and kiss the baby on the head before grabbing some money. The three teenagers left the apartment quietly, mindful of a sleeping infant, but the moment the door closed, they became raucous and the din of their combined laughter was heard even once they made it to the street.

Quinn fought a smile. She’d always been too serious when she was growing up, but in their own way, each of her children were free spirits and she was glad for that. She wouldn’t want any of her children to be as severe and humorless as she’d been when she was a kid.

“I can’t believe that’s baby Beth,” Rachel said, a little in awe. “Where did the time go?”

Quinn shrugged delicately. “I don’t know.” She found herself wondering about that all the time.

Rachel smiled down at her son. “He’s going to stay a baby forever. I’m not letting him get bigger.”

Quinn nodded solemnly. “I know that you can make that happen,” she said, her voice grave.

Rachel gave her a slight smile. “It’s nice how you have so much faith in me. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”


	4. Chapter 4

 

Each moment Quinn spent in Rachel’s adopted hometown, she could see why Rachel wanted to escape to New York so badly. Rachel could make even a trek to the Holocaust Museum less somber. The whole thing had been Beth’s idea since her best friend was Jewish, but it ended with all the kids in tears and Quinn not-so equipped to comfort them.

But Rachel was wholly _un_ self-conscious and wrapped one arm around her teary son and another arm around Beth, giving each of them a half-hug. Then she broke away from them, running down a hall with her arms in the air, shrieking her head off, completely disregarding any sense of decorum.

Max rolled his eyes and turned back to Quinn and her daughters. “My mom is really weird,” he said with a long-suffering sigh and then took off in a trot after his mother. Mia giggled, grabbed Molly and Chloe by the hands and then they were running off.

Beth sighed and turned to Quinn. “Race you,” she quipped, taking off before Quinn could reply.

Quinn shook her head. She refused to run. _Someone_ in their motley group had to show a little decorum. By the time she caught up to them, the kids weren’t giggling anymore, but they weren’t distraught anymore, either. They were respectful, but not upset.

Quinn fell into step with Rachel who was walking slightly behind the kids.

“Hey,” Quinn greeted.

“Hey,” Rachel said. She bit her lower lip. “For our honeymoon, Jesse and I went to Europe. We were young. I was still in college and we basically utilized the entirety of our savings, though we did have quite a bit of financial assistance from our parents.”

“Mmm,” Quinn said, because she wasn’t sure what to say, but she wanted to demonstrate she was listening.

“We were in the Jewish Museum in Berlin, where they had this exhibit with metal faces on the floor. Each face represented a person who suffered during the Holocaust and you could walk across them. But I couldn’t bring myself to do it.” Rachel paused. “Jesse could though,” she said softly. Rachel winced. “When people walk across it, it makes this really awful sound. I got really angry with him for walking across them and he said life was laugh or cry industry. Then he somehow bought one of those hand buzzers and he spent the rest of our honeymoon intermittently harassing me with it-- it was to the point I had to remind him I was his wife, not his little brother.” Rachel laughed softly at the memory. “Anyway. So I’m trying to remember that.” She cleared her throat. “I mean, if you were wondering at my complete lack of propriety back there, that’s why. The kids seemed like they needed a little break.”

Quinn smiled. “I wondered, but I wasn’t judging,” she teased. She pondered what she’d just heard, rolling it around in her head. Somehow, it seemed to fit that Rachel wouldn’t be able to bring herself to walk across metal masks that represented a person who suffered and Jesse St. James did. It was uncharitable considering she’d never really known him as an adult and he was dead, but she thought the differences between Jesse and Rachel were a lot more than just differences in senses of humor. “You’re really good with my kids,” Quinn said softly, because it was true. Within hours of meeting Rachel, the kids already adored her and now that several days had passed, Quinn’s kids, even Beth, clamored and vied for Rachel’s attention and not just because she was an actress and a pretty famous one at that. That really didn’t seem to faze any of the kids, although Beth, Molly and Chloe all seemed to understand the necessity for discretion to protect Rachel and her family’s privacy.

Quinn was having an amazing time and she was so glad she let Rachel play tour guide rather than signing up for one of those lame guided tours. Granted many of the things they did were the typical tourist things that one would expect to do with young children and a teenager who were visiting New York for the first time-- Statue of Liberty, Empire State Building, Central Park, Times Square and the like. With Rachel’s Broadway connections, it was easy to snag coveted seats to see a couple shows that were appropriate for the kids to watch. But Rachel also planned for the kids’ individual interests-- Beth was interested in photography, so clearly, the International Center of Photography was a must. Molly and Chloe both loved TV and movies and so Rachel arranged a visit to a film set to one of their favorite TV shows. Rachel made her best efforts to cater to Quinn’s interests as well and they were able to get tickets to a sold-out exhibit at MoMA of Quinn’s favorite artist.

With Rachel playing tour guide, Quinn and her girls never wanted to leave.

\--

Sometimes it was hard to believe Rachel had so recently lost her husband-- she was so cheerful, but Quinn could also sense Rachel was putting on a showface. Rachel seemed much more genuine when they were emailing or texting one another than when they were talking on the phone or Skypeing, and Rachel seemed _way_ more genuine during those interactions than when they were actually in proximity to one another. Still, Quinn had to admit she enjoyed Rachel’s company. It was not an easy concession to make.

On night six of their eight day, seven night trip, Beth and Shelby wandered into the living room where Quinn and Rachel were participating in a tea party with Molly, Chloe and Mia. Max stalwartly refused to participate and was currently involved in destroying monsters in a videogame.

“So,” Beth drawled. “We were thinking you guys could have a night out and Shelby and I can watch the kids.”

Shelby smiled at Rachel. “You haven’t had a real night out in months, even before the baby was born,” she murmured. “I want you to enjoy yourself while I’m here. You’re still young. You and Quinn can go out and get caught up.”

Rachel bit down on her lower lip. “But I don’t want to leave Chris.”

“And my girls are...a lot to handle,” Quinn said, glancing at Molly and Chloe who were glaring at one another. Mia, sweetly oblivious, was chattering away, but Molly and Chloe were clearly about two seconds away from trying to destroy each other.

Shelby laughed. “I’m sure I can handle them.” She crouched next to Rachel and brought her hand close to Rachel’s face.

Rachel flinched and leaned back, away from Shelby. She still had mixed emotions about Shelby and she just thought it was better if their interaction with one another was minimal.

Shelby swallowed hard, but didn’t comment. She brought her hand to rest at her side. “Have a night out,” she murmured. “It’ll be good for you.”

Rachel sighed and looked at Quinn. “Are you up for it?”

Quinn shrugged. “Sure.”

\--

In a dimly lit gastropub with Rachel, Quinn felt like a carefree young woman rather than someone’s mother. Her whole life since she was 16 was all about her girls and she’d had nights away from her girls before, but this was something entirely different, something she never really got to experience as she bar-hopped from place to place with Rachel. They flirted with boys, girls and bartenders, scoring free drinks and appetizers. Quinn couldn’t remember the last time she flirted with a bartender to score a free meal. Quinn thought it was possible that in another life, that would have been a regular occurrence, and she just sat back as Rachel worked her magic. It wasn’t as though either of them really needed to save the money, it was more just for the joy of charming someone enough into giving them something for free.

They started the night just walking next to each other, but after a few drinks, they were walking closer together, then they were walking arm in arm before they were eventually running down the street, holding hands and scantily dressed.

Quinn knew it was dumb to find the experience so thrilling, especially considering she was _thirty one_ and had three kids. But she never had an opportunity to do any of this-- she had Beth when she was sixteen, and she couldn’t bear the thought of giving Beth away. She and Mike got together in college and he was respectful of the fact she just couldn’t be like every other college kid. And then she had the twins barely into her 20s.

This was a whole new experience for her-- staying out all night, flirting, dancing, eating and drinking.

They drunkenly scampered off to a dingy bathroom in the fourth or fifth bar they’d hit up that night.

“This bathroom is a mess!” Rachel declared as she stumbled into a stall.

“I know!” Quinn exclaimed, stumbling into the next one. “I kind of feel like cleaning it.”

Rachel slammed her hand into their shared wall, laughing hard. “Me too!” she exclaimed. “It’s so dirty!”

“So dirty! That mirror needs to be Windexed and I’m not sitting all the way down on this seat!”

Rachel began to laugh. “Me neither! You know how I have two gay dads? When I was five, we were at the beach and everyone is well aware of how filthy public restrooms are at the beach. So my dads convinced this _total_ stranger who was going into the women’s bathroom to show me how to urinate without sitting all the way down on the toilet.”

Quinn cracked up. “Oh my God! She could have molested you!”

There was the sound of a toilet flushing and Rachel’s outrage shout. “Quinn! That is _not_ funny!” There was the sound of Rachel stomping her foot followed by a shriek. “THE FLOOR IS WET!” Rachel shouted.

Quinn chortled, stood up and flushed as well. She left her skirt drop so that it covered her butt again. “Oh, ew. The floor is wet here, too.”

They both emerged from their stalls at the same time, matching expressions of disgust as they headed toward the sink to wash their hands.

As they vigorously scrubbed their hands at the sink, Quinn drunkenly peered down at Rachel’s chest and poked Rachel’s bare arm with her index finger.

“Your nipples are erect,” Quinn announced.

Rachel looked down at herself. “Oh,” she said. “I see.”

“Are you aroused?”

“No,” Rachel said. “I think nipples sometimes get erect for no reason.”

“Well, I know you aren’t cold. It’s like 90 degrees still.”

“Stop commenting on the state of my nipples.”

“It’s just that I’ve never seen them that way.”

“Well, why would you have?!”

“I kind of want to pinch them,” Quinn said absently reaching toward Rachel’s chest with her hands.

Rachel swatted at Quinn’s hands and crossed her arms protectively. “Don’t you dare!”

“It’s just…it’s really distracting,” Quinn said with a laugh. “Oh my God, you could cut glass with those.”

Rachel glared at Quinn and reached out and quickly tweaked both of Quinn’s nipples.

Quinn shrieked in both surprise and outrage.

Rachel pointed triumphantly. “Now I’m not the only one.”

Quinn’s cheeks turned beet-red. She was going to kill Rachel.

Rachel grinned impishly at her and took off running out of the bathroom. Quinn gave chase and ran after Rachel as they ran out of the bar. They didn’t have a tab open and once they got outside the bar and into the warm night air, they sobered up ever so slightly.

“You violated me!” Quinn accused, laughing.

“Well, you clearly enjoyed it!” Rachel chuckled, pointing toward Quinn’s chest where her nipples were clearly visible through the sheer top she was wearing. Quinn looked down at herself and realized she did, in fact, looked like she enjoyed it.

“I’m going to kill you!” Quinn yelped.

Rachel shrieked and began running down the street with her arms in the air, shouting “aaahhhhh” as she ran.

Quinn ran after her, laughing and becoming increasingly sweaty and out of breath.

Rachel abruptly stopped in front of an all-night diner. She stopped so abruptly, that Quinn crashed into her back. Rachel swung around quickly and grasped Quinn by the waist before the blonde could stumble or fall. Instinctually, Quinn wrapped her arms around Rachel’s waist as well and they stood that way, holding one another, their bodies pressed into one another.

“I feel like getting breakfast,” Rachel declared softly with a chuckle. “And this establishment happens to be one of my favorite eateries,” Rachel said, gesturing toward the diner with her chin.

Quinn’s eyes widened. “We’ve been eating all night!”

“We’ve been snacking! It’s not a real meal.”

“We ate enough for five meals! And it’s three am!”

“I’ll buy you something with bacon.”

“Okay,” Quinn agreed.

Rachel grinned at her, dropped her hands from around Quinn’s waist. Quinn did the same, her hands lightly grazing Rachel’s butt as she did. Rachel took a few steps back, took Quinn by the hand and led her inside.

\--

As a testament to how much free alcohol they’d been given that night, even after consuming a ‘breakfast’ heavily emphasizing carbohydrates, they _still_ felt drunk after finishing eating. They laughed as they lamented over how much they’d regret it all later and poured themselves into a cab. Out of habit, Quinn told the driver her hotel and Rachel followed her in.

With Quinn’s children under the supervision of Shelby in Rachel’s apartment, Quinn’s hotel room was completely unoccupied. Quinn turned up the air-conditioning as high as it would go, downed two bottles of water and flopped onto the bed while Rachel consumed two bottles of water and poured herself into the other bed that Chloe and Molly usually occupied.

“I had so much fun tonight,” Quinn murmured. “We should have stuck the kids with your mom a long time ago.”

Rachel laughed softly. “I miss Christopher,” she admitted. “He’s a newborn and all I really want is to be with him. But I have to admit, this is the most fun I’ve had in a really long time and I’m so glad I did it.”

Quinn laughed, and her laughter was tinkly to Rachel’s ears. “I’ve never really done this before,” she admitted. “You know, because I always had Beth. I never really got a chance to do it and once the twins were born…forget it. It…it was _really_ fun.”

Rachel chuckled. “Well, pack up and move here and we’ll try to do this with some regularity.”

“Why don’t _you_ pack up and move to LA and we’ll try to do this in LA with quote unquote some regularity.”

“Oh, I couldn’t do that. I hate LA.”

Quinn laughed. “I guess we’re out of luck, then.”

Rachel sighed softly. “Too bad. I had fun. I never really did this either,” she admitted. “Not very much anyway. I got married when I turned 21 and I had Max soon after that…anyway. I’m just really glad we did this. I had so much fun.”

Quinn sighed as well. “Me too.”

\--

Quinn woke up the next morning and realized that for whatever reason, she’d crawled into bed with Rachel at some point. They were both clad in their clothes from the night before and Quinn felt dirty and grimy, but she wasn’t as hungover as she thought she should be.

“We should shower and go back to your place,” Quinn murmured, extending her arm and gently rousing Rachel. They’d curled up in the night, facing one another and Quinn felt a little awkward about sharing a bed with so much space between herself and the other person. Even during this whole trip when she’d shared the bed with Beth, her daughter was a fierce cuddler. Even when she wanted the space, her daughter seemed incapable of doing it. Consequently, she was accustomed to a lack of space when she was sharing her bed, and having Rachel so far away felt a little weird.

Rachel cocked open one eye. “I can’t believe we stayed out all night like a couple of 20 year olds,” she commented. She did not seem at all surprised to see Quinn there.

Quinn smiled. “We were hotter than all of those girls.”

Rachel grinned smugly. “I agree whole-heartedly with your very accurate assessment.” She paused. “I feel like a bad mother,” she admitted.

Quinn sighed. “I know, me too. But we’re _good_ moms, Rachel. We deserve a night off here and there, right?”

“I suppose,” Rachel said quietly. “So who should have the first shower?”

“You can have it. I kind of want to sleep for another hour. It’s only nine am.”

Rachel smirked. “By nine am, I usually--”

“Yeah, have accomplished numbers 1 through a million on your to-do list. I know. Go back to sleep, too, Rach.”

“I believe I will,” Rachel said.

Quinn was too tired to get out of the bed and go back into her own and though it was a blistering summer day outside already, the air-conditioning made the temperature of the room comfortable enough to use the comforter.

“Do you remember why I’m in your bed with you?” Quinn asked as she drifted off.

“For some reason you had my phone in your purse,” Rachel mumbled into her pillow, not bothering to open her eyes. “Before we went to sleep, I remembered I had to text my mom to let her know we weren’t coming home. We were looking for my phone and you had it in your purse, so you brought my phone to me and said you were too tired to go to your own bed, so you got into mine.” She paused. “Lazy,” she chided with affection.

“I’m paying for this room,” Quinn mumbled sleepily. “You can get out if you don’t like my laziness.”

“I find your laziness to be acceptable.”

“Good.”

They drifted to sleep.

\--

Four hours, one shower and a change of clothing (with Rachel borrowing a set from Quinn) later, they checked out of the hotel room since Quinn and her girls were staying at Rachel’s for the final two days and last night of their trip. They ate lunch together, alone, before they returned to Rachel’s home.

“Geez, mom,” Beth said. “When I said to have some fun, I didn’t mean this. Did you get a tattoo while you were out?”

Quinn looked at her daughter disapprovingly, but didn’t comment.

“Hi baby,” Shelby greeted Rachel as the brunette approached her mother to take her son.

Rachel did not respond to the endearment as she took Christopher into her arms.

“Did you have fun?” Shelby asked.

“Yes,” Rachel said. “Thank you for watching them. I appreciate it.”

“You know I’d do anything for you and my grandbabies,” Shelby murmured.

“Mmm,” Rachel said.

Quinn watched their interaction with curiosity. Rachel was cordial, but not very warm with Shelby. If anything, Rachel seemed reluctant and cautious when she interacted with Shelby.

“Was everything okay?”Rachel asked.

“Yes,” Shelby said. “No problems. Were you worried?”

“No,” Rachel said. “I wouldn’t have left them with you if I were worried.”

“I’m going to go,” Shelby murmured.

“Bye,” Rachel said, stepping away.

Rachel walked toward her bedroom to change out of the clothing she borrowed from Quinn into her own clothing.

Quinn watched as each of the children said goodbye to Shelby and exchanged a small smile and a quick hug with Shelby herself while Rachel was still in her bedroom. She left the kids playing a board game in the living room and knocked on Rachel’s bedroom door.

“Come in.”

Quinn entered and found her clothes folded neatly on top of Rachel’s bed and Rachel sitting on it, breastfeeding Christopher.

Quinn blushed, but it wasn’t the first time she’d seen a woman breastfeed.

“Hey,” Quinn said. “You okay? You seemed upset at your mom.”

Rachel gave her a tiny smile. “I’m fine. I’m not upset about anything,” she said. “I’m just feeding my son.”

“You sure?”

“Yes.”

“Okay,” Quinn said. “I’m going to make sure the kids don’t need anything. See you when you come back out.”

“Thanks, Quinn,” Rachel said softly.

\--

Though Rachel wanted to like her mother, she found it really difficult to do so. Her mother walked away from her and only re-emerged in her life because she was dating Jesse. Her mother walked away from her, but stayed in touch with Jesse even after he graduated. Rachel was certain Shelby was only involved in her life because she was the mother of Jesse St. James’s children, but if Max, Mia and Christopher were her children only, it was likely Shelby wouldn’t want to be involved in their lives either.

She wanted her kids to have a grandmother, because Jesse’s parents liked to travel the world more than they liked to visit their own grandkids and her fathers were loving, but unreliable and undependable grandfathers. But Shelby was a _good_ grandmother. She just wasn’t a good mother, at least not to her. Shelby was always more of a mother to Jesse and Rachel had come to look at Shelby as a mother-in-law rather than her mother.

With her son fed, Rachel put him down in his crib and rejoined her older two children and their guests.

She sat next to Quinn on the floor of her living room and joined in the board game they were playing.

Quinn set her hand on Rachel’s back. “You okay?”

“Yes. You?”

Quinn smiled. “Fine.”

\--

When it was time for Quinn and her children to go back to LA, Molly and Chloe cried and pleaded to stay a little longer and even Beth begged for more time.

“Do you have to leave?” Mia asked, clearly distressed. “Really?”

“Not even one more night?” Max asked hopefully.

Quinn smiled down at them. “I’m sorry, sweethearts,” she murmured. “I have to go back to work tomorrow.”

Mia sighed deeply. “I hate work. I don’t like it when Mommy goes to work either.”

Quinn suppressed a smile. Mia was Rachel’s doppelganger, right down to the theatrics.

Quinn and Rachel faced each other and smiled. They embraced, holding one another tightly.

“Call me the _second_ you land,” Rachel murmured. “This was so much fun. We have to do this again.”

“Next time you guys visit us in LA.”

“We’ll negotiate.”

“You’re such a New York City snob,” Quinn laughed.

Rachel ducked her head, and gave Quinn a shy smile, but did not dispute the charge. “Don’t be a stranger,” Rachel said softly.

\--

Though Quinn did call the moment she landed in LA, she only talked to Rachel for a few minutes to assure the brunette they did make it safely home.

Going on vacation meant coming back to a mountain of work, and it took a week of working her ass off to really get caught up. She’d emailed and texted Rachel intermittently, but they didn’t talk much since she was so busy.

But after a couple weeks, they settled into their old routine of a few texts every day, a few emails every other day and a couple phone calls a week. The kids continued to email and Skype with one another and Beth was still in touch with Alexis and Eddie. Quinn could definitely count the vacation as a ‘win.’

And so a few months passed with the routine of their lives-- Quinn went to work, took care of her kids who visited regularly with their revered father, she bickered with coworkers, took coffee breaks with friends and complained, commiserated and bickered with Rachel.

It was all very status quo.

Then one day, Mike quietly admitted that he was dating someone, that yes, it was very serious and he’d like to introduce the girls to her tomorrow night over dinner.

It’d been two years since they separated and a year since they divorced, and though it was a mutual decision to split, Quinn could barely warble her agreement through the lump that rose in her throat. She gave the phone to Beth and went straight to bed.

She didn’t know why she was so upset. Things between them simply ended. No one cheated on the other person. No one met someone and fell in love and respectfully ended their marriage to be with the new person. Neither of them were crazy or intolerable. They just kind of fell out of love. It happened every day and it was literally the most cliché thing they could have done to each other. She didn’t want him back, but the thought of him with someone else-- someone serious enough that he’d ask permission to introduce her to the girls…it was stomach-clenching.

She clutched the pillow that had replaced Mike in her bed and angrily wiped at her eyes, embarrassed and furious with herself for _crying_.This was not worth crying over, and really, the thing that bothered her most was he moved on first. But she still couldn’t stop herself from crying like some fool.

She wanted to hate him, but hating Mike was kind of like hating an affectionate puppy. She just couldn’t do it.

A week passed and she was starting to get over it. She did her best not to let it show, of course, and outwardly, she was happy for Mike. But inwardly, she wondered how he moved on so fast. It just seemed quick to her, even though it really wasn’t.

She didn’t talk to Rachel that much during that week. She didn’t even really think of Rachel that often-- she was busy with work, busy with the kids and busy wondering about this ‘Deborah’ Mike was so enamored with. Then one day, her office phone rang because apparently, she had a package delivered to her at reception.

“Wooo,” some of her coworkers called out to her as she walked toward the reception area.

“Shut up,” she called back, but without any real venom.

She got to the reception desk, and blushed when she saw the large basket waiting for her. But she snatched it up and walked back to her office with her head held high.

“What’s in it?” one of her nosier coworkers asked, swinging by. Janet stepped into Quinn’s space and immediately began prodding at the basket’s cellophane wrapping.

Quinn swatted Janet’s hands away. “Don’t be nosy!”

Janet rolled her eyes and left. “You’re so withholding.”

But Janet shut the door behind her and Quinn opened up the basket and read the card attached. Rather than the previous coffee gift basket with a card that was printed by the company, this card was in Rachel’s handwriting, which meant she must have prepared this basket herself and had it specially delivered. Quinn read the card. ‘Q, I heard about M. Here’s a Fuck-it Bucket.’

Quinn released a soft laugh and rifled through the basket’s contents. It was filled with Almond Roca candies, which were Quinn’s favorite toffee; chocolate turtles, which were Quinn’s favorite chocolates and Twizzlers, Quinn’s favorite candy. Distantly, Quinn mused that though Rachel Berry loved to talk, she was clearly a good listener as well. There was a DVD of _Dirty Dancing_ which was one of Quinn’s favorite movies, which strangely enough, she didn’t own. (“That’s weird,” Rachel had told her during one of their late night Skype talks. “I own all my favorite movies.” Quinn had just shrugged lethargically in response) a $25 gift card from iTunes, a framed photograph of Rachel, Quinn and all of their children during the visit to New York, a few post cards, stickers, magnets and trinkets from New York( the sorts of things a tourist might buy), a high school photograph of the Glee Club with Mike’s picture defaced with a Post-It attached which read ‘for comedic value only, I still hold Mike Chang in very high regard’ and two CD cases which were rubber banded together with a folded note on top.

Quinn laughed and pinned up the picture in which Mike was defaced on her desk wall and then set the framed picture of her and Rachel’s families on her desk. Curiously, Quinn pulled off the rubber band on the CD cases and unfolded the note.

_  
“Quinn,_

_One of these is a compilation if your favorite ‘sad’ cinematic scenes for when you need a good cry. The other is a compilation of your favorite ‘funny’ cinematic scenes for when you need a good laugh._

_-Rachel”_

Furrowing her brow, Quinn reached for a disc which had a yellow happy face on it. The other disc had a yellow sad face on it. Quinn shook her head. Sometimes Rachel was too much, but Quinn had to admit Rachel was absolutely endearing.

She pulled out the disc and put it into her computer and was immediately prompted to open the F: drive. Quinn did so and began perusing the clips.

Within fifteen minutes, Quinn was laughing so hard, she was crying. She reached for her phone and called Rachel.

“A ‘Fuck-it Bucket’, huh?” Quinn said wryly, in lieu of any sort of greeting.

Rachel laughed. “Well, as Jesse liked to say, when life gets you down, say fuck it.”

Quinn laughed. “Good philosophy,” she noted. She paused. “Thank you,” she said warmly. “It was very sweet of you.”

Rachel chuckled. “It wasn’t anything,” she said dismissively. “I heard about Mike,” she said gently. “Would you like me to send people after him? I could go myself and give him a pummeling he won’t soon forget. I have fists of fury, apparently.”

Quinn snorted. Mike was nearly a foot taller than Rachel and if Rachel ever came after him with the intent to inflict bodily injury, he’d just laugh and weave around Rachel like an octopus. “It’s fine,” Quinn said, laughing. “I want him to move on. It’s been a long time. It’s just…”

“He moved on first,” Rachel said softly.

“Yeah.”

“What sheer unmitigated nerve. The gall of him,” Rachel teased.

Quinn made a face. “Rach, don’t tease.”

Rachel chuckled gently. “Sorry,” she murmured. “Are you okay? Molly told Mia in an email you’ve seemed sad since the girls met that Deborah person.”

“I’m okay,” Quinn said, and she felt guilty she let her emotions show like that in front of her girls. “I’m just glad she’s nice. They all liked her, even Beth.”

“Molly says Deborah is not as pretty as you are.”

“Good!”

Rachel laughed. “You are _very_ beautiful,” Rachel murmured. “You always have been. And I’ve known you most of our lives,” she said quietly. Something about the way Rachel said it made something in Quinn’s stomach flutter and she felt flustered and flummoxed. She groped for a way to respond, but it was okay because Rachel was still talking, so she had some time. “This woman has nothing on you,” Rachel continued. “There is no way she’s as pretty, intelligent, kind or as talented as you are.”

Quinn chuckled and she knew Rachel was just doing the pep talk that women gave their friends in circumstances like these, but it still meant a lot to her.

“I know it’s not too early, but it feels so soon,” Quinn admitted quietly. “I haven’t even really thought about being with anyone else. And now he’s actually doing it.”

“He’s not very smart,” Rachel said. “If it’d been me, I would have tried to woo you back,” she said sweetly. “Women like you don’t come around every day. I would have done my best to court you and curry your favor again so you’d fall back in love with me.”

Quinn smiled crookedly, and the smile was apparent in her voice. “But if we’d been together, you would have fallen out of love with me, too, and you wouldn’t have thought it was worth trying.”

Rachel laughed. “Like I said, women like you don’t come around every day and I would have been savvy enough to be aware of that. I would have courted you so we could have fallen back in love with each other,” she said, her voice light. She chuckled gently. “Women like you are a commodity, Quinn,” Rachel said tenderly. “You’re beautiful, you’re educated, you’re talented, you own your own home and you have a great job. You’ll find someone again, Quinn. Don’t be discouraged.”

Quinn chuckled. “Thanks, Rach. Since I’m a commodity, so I guess I can be traded, huh?” she joked, keeping her voice steady and light. But she was glad Rachel couldn’t see her because everything Rachel said reached her and she was a little weepy.

Rachel giggled. “I suppose this is the wrong time to say _I’d_ trade you in for a younger model, isn’t it?”she asked archly.  
  
Quinn was unamused. “Yes.” But she laughed again. “So, what about you?” she asked.

In all their conversations, Rachel resolutely dodged talking very seriously about Jesse. She’d mention him in passing, but that was it.

“What about me?” Rachel asked carefully.

“Have you thought about moving on?”

“I’m widowed,” Rachel said matter-of-factly. “The rules are different when you get divorced and when you’re widowed.”

“I didn’t know there was an actual rule book. Did Emily Post publish it?”

“Her spinster sister did,” Rachel dead-panned. “Although I’m not sure how much stock I should put into her advice.”

Quinn laughed. “You’re young, Rach. And how did you put it? You’re a commodity. You’re going to have to find someone sometime, statistically speaking anyway.”

“I’m going to spend my whole life alone,” Rachel deadpanned. She chuckled. “I know I’ll meet someone eventually,” she said quietly. “But I’m not ready and more importantly, my kids aren’t ready for me to move on from their father.”

“You deserve to be happy, Rach.”

“So do you, Quinn.” Rachel sighed. “I’m going to let you go. I am aware that there are people out there who have jobs.”

Quinn smiled. “Any auditions or anything in your horizon?”

“Not for a while,” Rachel said. “I’m going to wait until Chris is a little older. I’ve been getting scripts and calls, but nothing that interests me.”

“Nothing?” Quinn asked.

It kind of concerned her because she knew how important career was to Rachel and she respected Rachel made a deliberate choice to stay out of the game for a while to spend time with her infant son and her two older children. But it worried her a little that Rachel didn’t find _anything_ interesting. She wondered if maybe Rachel was depressed. Quinn wouldn’t blame her a bit, but there was a difference between being sad and being depressed, and sometimes Quinn wondered if maybe Rachel was firmly entrenched in the latter category and just did an admirable job of pretending she wasn’t.

“Nothing,” Rachel affirmed. “It’s all terrible. So I’m glad to spend my time with the kids.”

“Hey,” Quinn said. “I do need to get back to work, but if you need anything, promise you’ll call me?”

Rachel laughed softly. “Only if you’ll do the same.”

“Deal.”

“Agreed.”


	5. Chapter 5

 

Autumn passed just as quickly as the summer did. Quinn thought about Rachel’s infant son frequently because she caught glimpses of him during the Skype sessions that Molly and Chloe had with Max and Mia and because Rachel sent her a picture of Christopher via text message at least once every other week. Children changed so quickly during that first year and Quinn found herself with a strange ache to hold him in her arms again.

She found herself reminiscing about the summer. The weather in Southern California never reached the blisteringly cold proportions of her Midwestern childhood, but there was definitely a drop in temperature once summer passed, even in LA. Scarves and jackets came out, and sure it was more a function of fashion (and LA theatrics) than a function of genuine necessity, but _still_ , one really couldn’t say the weather was ‘warm.’

It’d been an unusually chilly autumn and the onset of winter was unusually rainy. Quinn had a routine with Rachel of texts, emails, phone calls and Skype along with the occasional care packages sent back and forth. Sometimes Quinn would kill time before her 9am Thursday morning staff meeting by doing a little online shopping and she’d see the _cutest_ outfit for Christopher and couldn’t help purchase it. She’d memorized Rachel’s address by then, just as Quinn was certain Rachel had memorized hers.

She spoke to Rachel so frequently, that even though Rachel was so far away and the time they spent together was very short, she couldn’t help reminisce about the days they spent together with the kids, terrorizing the city of New York.

They’d sat around on Rachel’s balcony laughing as the kids broke into spontaneous dance recitals and impromptu plays. Rachel was breast-feeding, but pumping at the time, so she’d let herself indulge with a glass of wine every other night and sneak a couple sips from Quinn’s glass on the nights she wouldn’t. They’d clap for their kids, laugh over their antics, coo over the newness of Chris and gently push Arf, the mutt, away with their feet when he got a little too annoying with his constant need for attention. “He’s you as a puppy,” Quinn joked, much to Rachel’s lack of amusement.

It’d been the best vacation Quinn could remember in a long time.

\--

She’d just logged out of hotmail after checking her email on December afternoon when an MSN headline caught her eye ‘Actress Rachel Berry Breaks Leg in Subway Station.’

Her heart lurched. She thought about Rachel just a few hours before because it was December and close to Rachel’s birthday, and so she reminded herself to be certain to find Rachel a gift.

Quinn clicked on the article and she was relieved Rachel wasn’t particularly hurt-- a broken leg yes, but she was apparently in good spirits. She’d slipped on an ice patch going down the stairs in a subway station and fell in such a way that her body completely twisted.

Quinn’s first instinct was to get up to head to the airport, but the moment she put her hand on her office door to push it open, she realized she was being insane. She couldn’t take time off work just like that, even for a couple days. She was _swamped_. She couldn’t leave the kids with Mike because Mike was currently in Paris, on tour.

She felt so helpless, she kicked the door and sat down in her chair again, wondering what she should do.

She called Rachel, with the need to hear the other woman’s voice.

“Heeeey,” Rachel picked up after the third ring, sounding hazy.

Quinn suppressed a smile. “Are you on something?”

“Broke my leg,” Rachel said petulantly. “They gave me drugs.” She paused. “I took them!” she chirped. “I’m finding the effects to be very salubrious.”

Quinn snorted. “You’re high,” she declared.

“I am,” Rachel said agreeably.

Quinn relaxed a little. Rachel sounded okay. A little under the influence, but what the hey. “I _heard_ you broke your leg,” Quinn said softly. “Way to walk, you big klutz,” she murmured tenderly. “Are you okay?”

“My cast already itches,” Rachel said, peevishly. “It’s very uncomfortable. After all these years of the practice of medicine, these so-called professionals still can’t figure out a less cumbersome way to immobilize a limb to optimize healing? Medicine is quackery!”

Quinn chuckled gently. She’d broken a leg once before herself. Casts were very uncomfortable and itchy, but Rachel was clearly a terrible patient. “I’m sorry it hurts,” she murmured, because she’d come to know Rachel well enough to know she got this whiny she when was in physical pain.

Rachel exhaled softly. “It’s not your fault,” she murmured. “I was so clumsy.”

“Who’s taking care of you and the kids?” Quinn asked, worried.

“I don’t need anyone!” Rachel muttered, pouting.

Quinn laughed quietly. “Not even you can do it all with a broken leg, Rach. Who’s there?”

“Yo mama,” Rachel joked, dissolving into laughter.

“Rachel.”

“My mama.”

“Rachel.”

“’’Mama who bore me, mama who gave me no way to handle things that make me so sad,’” Rachel sang softly, singing a few bars from a song from _Spring Awakening_.

“Rach, seriously.”

“Seriously. My mother flew out,” Rachel said with a sigh.

Quinn winced. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Rachel said quietly. “The kids love her and I want their relationship to flourish. I just wish she’d stay away from me,” she said darkly. “Speak of the devil,” Rachel whispered.

It became distinctly muffled as Rachel must have set the phone on her chest.

Quinn heard Rachel call out “I’m fine,” and then curse very softly.

Then Quinn heard Shelby’s voice. Quiet, soft.

“You have a fever.”

“I’m fine.” (Rachel, her voice hardening slightly)

“I’ll get you something cold to drink.” (Shelby, sounding very close to pleading.)

“I’m fine.”

“Rachel--”

“Really,” Rachel said insistently. “I’m fine. Please just take care of the kids. They’re the ones who can’t take care of themselves. _I’m_ an adult, _they’re_ little and need you.”

A few moments later, Rachel was back on the line.

“Hey,” Rachel breathed.

“Hey,” Quinn replied. “You have a fever?”

“She was very unscientific. She only put her hand on my forehead,” Rachel said, her tone casual.

“Do you really not want her around you that much?”

“I’m hostile to her presence in my life, yes,” Rachel said. “I know she loved Jesse more than she loved me. And every time she’s around here, I know she wishes it’d been me who had the aneurysm and dropped dead, not Jesse.”

Quinn winced. “Rach, I’m sure she doesn’t feel that way. She’s your mother.”

“Actually, I know she does,” Rachel said dryly. “Because at the funeral, she said, ‘this should have been you, not him,’ and so I’m certain she wishes it were me.”

“She said that to you?!” Quinn yelled, outraged.

“She apologized,” Rachel said. “But of course she had to. But I know she meant it.”

“Maybe she didn’t,” Quinn said softly. “Maybe she just said something she didn’t mean because she was grieving.” She wasn’t playing devil’s advocate to defend Shelby, Quinn kind of hated her at the moment. She was playing devil’s advocate because Rachel sounded _so_ sad and _so_ hurt.

“You don’t see the way she looks at me when no else is around. Trust me. She wishes it’d been me, no matter how much she insists otherwise. I’m not going to set myself up for disappointment again. There are many people who aren’t close to their mothers and she didn’t even raise me. I want her in my life for my kids, not for me. She can see the kids as much as she wants, but I don’t want her near me. I know that’s not feasible, necessarily, but I don’t have to have a lot of contact with her either.”

Quinn worried her lower lip between her teeth. She didn’t like the way Rachel sounded right now.

“Is she taking good care of you?”

“I don’t need her to, I can take care of myself. And anyway.” Rachel’s voice caught. “I don’t like such naked displays of helplessness in front of her. It was bad enough to have her in the delivery room when Chris was born. But at least screaming and crying then is considered socially acceptable. This is nothing.”

Rachel thought back to the delivery. It’d been pretty typical, but she’d been drugged up and she missed Jesse so much that day. She’d cried the whole time, calling for him and Shelby pressed her hands to Rachel’s sweaty forehead, gently urging her to hang on, tough it out a little longer. “I know you can do this, baby. You’re so strong” and Rachel had slapped Shelby’s hands away, screaming that she wasn’t Shelby’s baby, and never had been. She didn’t like that state of her relationship with Shelby, but she didn’t see how it could ever be any different or any better.

 

“I’m going to ask for a few days off next week.” That settled it for Quinn. She could leave the girls with Brit and Santana. “I can’t this week, Rach. I’m sorry. But I promise I’ll be out next week. I can’t stand long, but I’ll help you out for a while and--”

“No it’s okay,” Rachel cut in. “I know Mike’s in Paris, so who would you leave the girls with. It’s--”

“I’ll leave them with Brit and Santana. You need someone to--”

“I’ll be fine, really. I can honestly take care of myself. I’ll hire someone if I have to and--”

“You shouldn’t hire someone to take care of you when there are people who would. It’s not a big deal, I’ll--”

“It’s just easier that way, honestly. And I’ll feel bad that we can’t have fun like last time and--”

“But it can still be fun. I’ll be good to see you and--”

“And I’ll feel bad because I know Max and Mia would want to see the girls and you can’t bring them this time. Really, Quinn. I’m fine. I don’t need--”

“Stop saying you don’t need anyone! You broke your leg. Let me help you. Whatever I can--”

“Really, it’s fine. It wasn’t a bad break. I’m ambulatory on crutches and I can shower with one leg out of the stall, you’ve seen my bathroom and you know it’s feasible, so--”

“Okay, but I still want to plan another trip out to see you guys. Why don’t we--”

“That’s great! If the kids’ spring break--”

“Correspond--”

“Right. Then--”

“We’ll do that, but if not, we’ll do it in the summer and maybe some other time you guys--”

“Could go out there. Absolutely. So it’s settled.”

Quinn and Rachel both sighed and they then belatedly realized they’d just had an entire conversation cutting each other off and finishing each other’s thoughts. They both laughed.

“You sure you don’t need me to go out there?” Quinn asked softly.

“I’m fine, really,” Rachel said. “I’d rather you visit when we can actually have some fun. Don’t worry. I can take care of myself.” She yawned. “I’m getting sleepy now though. So I’m going to go.”

“Okay,” Quinn said quietly. “Feel better, Rach.” She paused as she thought about the moment of fear and worry she felt when she heard about Rachel’s fall. “I really need you, you know,” she whispered.

Rachel was silent for a moment before she responded. “Do you now?” she asked softly. “And why’s that?”

Quinn swallowed hard. The moment felt too heavy and intense. This was Rachel. She was Quinn. They didn’t have this kind of relationship. But she’d absolutely meant it. When she heard Rachel was hurt, she’d panicked, even knowing it wasn’t a big deal. Rachel had quickly morphed into one of her best friends, and they’d only really hung out _once_. But still, Rachel had become important to her. But this felt like way too much, and Quinn needed to break them out of this moment.

“Who am I going to hang out with while our kids terrorize the city?” Quinn asked lightly.

Rachel laughed, loud and hard. “True enough.”

“But seriously, Rach. Get better, okay?” Quinn murmured sincerely.

“I will,” Rachel replied. “For you,” she said tenderly.”Because you need me,” She laughed softly. “You know, to keep you entertained.” She yawned again. “I’m going to sleep. I really am tired, Quinn.”

“Talk to you soon, Rach.”

“Definitely,” Rachel breathed.

\--

That night Quinn’s dreams seemed to last forever. She seemed to wake up after each memorable one.

One in particular stood out. It didn’t scare her or anything, though it gave her the urge to call Rachel again just to make sure her friend was doing okay.

In the dream, there was a passage of time in which Rachel began to adjust to her crutches. But one day, Dream Rachel became exasperated and threw her arms around Quinn’s neck for assistance.

“I hate these things,” Dream Rachel exclaimed in frustration. “I feel so helpless. I’m _useless_.”

In the dream, Quinn laughed, but even in the dream, some part of her wanted to cry. “You aren’t useless. You’re perfect.”

“You’re so full of it.”

Dream Quinn wrapped her arms around Dream Rachel, picking her up and carrying her to the couch, since apparently, in her dreams, Quinn was incredibly strong, not that Rachel weighed all that much, but Quinn could accept the fact she wasn’t exactly going to impress anyone with her upper body strength in her waking life. In any case, Dream Rachel sighed contentedly once she was safely deposited on the couch.

“Get better soon, okay,” Quinn murmured tenderly , and though it was just a dream, she felt very close to tears. “I really need you, you know.”

“You just need me as your partner in crime,” Rachel teased.

“I just need you.”

Quinn woke up then, feeling a little uncomfortable and embarrassed, but mostly feeling an urge to talk to Rachel. She didn’t call though. She knew even if she woke Rachel up, Rachel wouldn’t mind-- they’d chat for a while before they’d each go back to sleep. But she just couldn’t bring herself to call, because she wasn’t sure what she’d say.

\--

Quinn spent the next six weeks checking in with Rachel at least once, frequently twice a day, just to make sure everyone was okay. Shelby could only stay with Rachel and the kids for a week before she had to go back to work. Then a steady rotation of Rachel’s friends and parents of Max and Mia’s friends checked in on Rachel and the kids, to help out with whatever it was Rachel needed. Quinn felt envy course through her when she thought about all the people who could give very tangible assistance like dropping off a meal, helping Rachel clean the house or taking the kids to their annual medical checkup while Quinn was relegated to just verbal support. Always a fucking cheerleader.

Rachel seemed somber sometimes, though Quinn didn’t blame her because if she had a broken leg, she’d be somber, too.

“You okay?” Quinn asked one night, when Rachel sounded particularly down.

“Yes,” Rachel said with a sigh. “It’s just so weird to think how people, practically strangers, are so willing to help me out.”

“It’s not so weird,” Quinn said. “You’d do it for them.”

“Hmm,” Rachel said noncommittally.

“What’s going on?” Quinn asked softly.

“Did I ever tell you about my best friend? She’s Max and Mia’s godmother.”

“No,” Quinn said. “I…you’ve never mentioned her.”

Quinn thought that was a little strange. She’d met a few of Rachel’s friends when she and the children visited and Rachel mentioned the various costars and friends who dropped in on her lately to keep her company.

“She hasn’t called me,” Rachel said quietly.

“Well, it’s only been a few weeks since you broke your leg. Maybe she’s been busy.”

“No, I mean, she hasn’t called me since Jesse died.”

Quinn blinked. She was so flummoxed, she wasn’t sure how to respond.

“I just find it really confusing,” Rachel continued quietly. And she really did. She and Ceci had even spent a few weeks dating and having loads of drunken sex during a brief period when she was broken up with Jesse while she was in college. Then they each realized they were better as friends than a couple. They were so close, like sisters, really, once they got past the sleeping with each other period, and the sudden, but complete disappearance still baffled her. And really, how could she ignore the fact abandonment by other people was the common thread in her life? At some point, she just had to face up to the fact the problem wasn’t other people, it was her. “I mean, she’s my best friend and then _nothing_ , not even when Jesse…” she trailed off. “But total strangers, like other parents from Max and Mia’s classes and friends I wasn’t that close to, neighbors, people I worked with a _long_ time ago, people I was in plays with in _college_ , my dry cleaner, Jesse’s optometrist… you. All these completely random people have been so amazing to me, and Ceci just disappears. I just don’t understand. It makes no sense to me. She’s my best friend, or at least, I thought she was.”

“Things don’t always make sense, sweetheart,” Quinn said softly.

The endearment just slipped out, she just wanted to comfort Rachel a little because Rachel just sounded so sad.

Rachel laughed softly. “I miss her,” she admitted, sniffling. She sighed and took a deep breath. “So, how are you?” she asked brightly. “I’m so proud of you for that promotion.”

“It’s nothing,” Quinn said. “Just a tiny pay increase. Are you o--”

“Still,” Rachel said, gently interrupting before Quinn could ask if she was okay. “I’m so proud of you. I know how hard you work. I wish I could take you out to celebrate.”

“I think the balloons delivered to my office sufficed,” Quinn said dryly.

Rachel laughed. “I was going to have an individual in some type of animal costume sing to you, but to be honest, I find those people to be disturbing.”

“That’s because of that summer you spent working at Disney World in college.”

Rachel laughed. “It wasn’t such a bad summer job.”

“Well, you were Snow White. You weren’t in one of the Dwarves. Although that would have been equally suitable given how short you are.”

“Quinn Fabray, I am not that short.”

“You _are_ that short, but it’s okay. You need to accept this about yourself.”

“Maybe you’re just too tall,” Rachel teased.

“I may be above average in height, but you’re below average. Which would _you_ rather be?” Quinn teased back.

“I’ll remember that when you visit us again. My vengeance will be swift, vast and complete. It will be made sweeter by the length of time I need to wait to mete out justice. And before you make any snarky rejoinders, yes, Quinn, in this instance, vengeance and justice are one in the same.”

It was a testament to how well Rachel had come to know her because, really, Quinn had been about to make a comment about that.

“You’ll be sorry when I become a Supreme Court Justice.”

“Aren’t all the current Justices rather young? And many of them are fairly recent in their appointments? That’s a very long time to wait. I would not find vengeance after such a length of time to be satisfactory. I might even forget I was angry in the first place.”

“That’s where you and I differ, Rach. I carry grudges. I’m great at it.”

Rachel laughed softly. “You’re scaring me a little,” she joked. “Have I ever done anything to you in high school I need to apologize for? At least, for something I haven’t already apologized for.”

Quinn swallowed hard. “No,” she said quietly. “If anything I need to apologize to you.”

Rachel chuckled. “It’s _high school_ ,” she said with an easy laugh. “I mean, yes, I’ll admit it hurt at the time. But the halls of McKinley High School were not the entirety of my social life, Quinn. I had other friends from other non-McKinley related activities. My high school experience wasn’t ideal, but it wasn’t as terrible as you’d expect or as awful as you likely think it was. You have nothing to apologize for. We were all very young.” Rachel laughed heartily. “And very very stupid.”

It was gratifying to hear. Quinn laughed as well. “We were all very stupid,” she admitted. “I mean, we were both so into _Finn_.”

Rachel burst into laughter. “I only look back at him with fondness,” she said. “Kurt tells me Finn is very happy. And I’m happy for him. But Finn is a very big man stuck in a little town with a little life and I would have found that oppressive, stifling, boring and unchallenging.”

“Me too,” Quinn admitted. When she stayed in Lima after high school, she’d thought, her life was going to turn out exactly how she feared, even though she was resigned to it. Finn had broken up with her the day before junior prom because he was irritated with her for her campaigning to get them the titles of Prom Queen and Prom King. She’d spent the entirety of her senior year and part of the summer before college trying to get him back before she realized he wasn’t worth it. And then there was Mike, who was so determined to get them both out of Lima so they could follow bigger and better dreams. She’d always love him and be grateful to him for that.

“I’m glad you made it out,” Rachel murmured. “I always knew you would though. You were always better than that town. You were always too big for it.”

Quinn smiled. “So were you.”

“I know,” Rachel said frankly.

Quinn laughed, but quickly sobered. “She’s not your friend, Rach,” she said softly. “Forget about this Ceci girl, okay?”

Rachel exhaled softly.”Yes. Okay.”  



	6. Chapter 6

 

Christopher was nine months old when Rachel decided she was ready to get back to work. She started auditioning again, though for not anything on Broadway, since that would inevitably demands too much of her time. She just couldn’t do that yet. She wanted to, but she didn’t feel like she had the luxury of rehearsals and ten shows a week. So she settled for guest roles on TV shows that she liked which filmed in the city and snagged a few movie roles here and there. She threw herself behind projects that she really liked, and she really didn’t care about any critical or commercial success. It just felt nice to work again, and she’d realized she’d missed it. Maybe dropping out of life wasn’t the best way to handle grief.

It was the first time in a long time she _truly_ felt like herself again.

She worked steadily over the course of a few months, and suddenly, it was summer again and time for Quinn and her girls to visit.

They’d talked about it and planned it out, and when Quinn and her girls actually arrived, there was an entirely embarrassing reunion in the airport between their families. Rachel pressed her face into Quinn’s chest and Quinn rested her chin on Rachel’s shoulder as they exchanged a tight hug. Around them, their children were greeting one another.

Quinn and Rachel pulled apart and gently tapped Rachel’s leg which had healed up with no lingering effects, if Rachel were to be believed. “Hey Wolverine,” she teased.

Rachel grinned. “Hey,” she drawled.

Quinn peered down at Rachel’s bare legs. In her yellow sundress, Rachel looked about eighteen years old. Quinn briefly thought about what a pity it’d been that one of those legs had been broken, but mercifully, she didn’t see any permanent damage. Rachel and her legs looked as good as ever. The leg break had been deemed one of the year’s “worst” things ever by _Maxim_ magazine since that necessitated Rachel’s leg being covered by a cast for a full eight weeks, since apparently Rachel’s Wolverine-like healing did not cover the fact that she was a terrible patient who pushed her recuperative limits. Seeing Rachel’s bare legs again, Quinn could definitely see why _Maxim_ magazine had been so sad, because even in winter, Rachel tended to go bare-legged or wore tights with her short skirts.

“Is your leg really okay?”

Rachel tapped her foot on the ground, like Thumper in _Bambi_. “Perfect.”

Quinn felt a little tickle in her belly as Rachel peered up at her with a dazzling smile as she thumped her foot on the ground. “Good,” she said, flashing Rachel a relieved smile.

\--

The kids all claimed to be hungry, so the very first thing they decided to do was get something to eat.

Their table was loud-- loud enough that other tables seated near them asked to be moved to another table, but neither Rachel nor Quinn cared. With so many people seated at one table, it was bound to get loud.

Quinn watched Beth and Rachel engaged in a very animated discussion, or at least, Rachel was animated, seeming to use the salt and pepper shakers as hand puppets or something, judging by the way she was moving them. Beth was gazing at Rachel with a mixture of bemusement and affection.

A few hours later, they were loafing around in a pile in Rachel’s living room. Alexis and Eddie, Rachel’s niece and nephew via Jesse came over again to keep Beth company and the three teenagers were listening to music and chatting in Rachel’s guest room, their occasional bursts of raucous laughter filtering into the living room. Max, Mia, Molly and Chloe were playing Wii in the living room and Christopher was running around the apartment, seeming to have endless energy.

Quinn leaned in close to Rachel so that her nose and chin grazed Rachel’s bicep. She plucked the cold bottle of beer out of Rachel’s hand and took a long gulp before passing it back. “I saw your episode of _Tremont Street_ ,” she murmured.

Rachel chuckled and groaned a little in embarrassment. “I told you not to watch!”

Quinn gave her a tiny grin. “It was the rerun last night. I couldn’t help it.”

“Please at least tell me you fast-forwarded through the rollerskating parts.”

Quinn grinned. “I paused and zoomed.”

“Quinn!”

Quinn laughed. “You were great,” she said sincerely. “I don’t know what you were so embarrassed about.”

 _Tremont Street_ was in its fourth season on Showtime about a group of friends who’d grown up together in Boston and often used older and younger actors for the same characters in flashback. Rachel had played a former friend of the group who’d left under less than ideal circumstances and apparently casting felt she could believably play a mid-20s aged character and her teenaged counterpart, since apparently most teenage roles on TV were filled by actors and actresses who were pushing thirty anyway. Rachel had donned a pair of skimpy red shorts, a sheer white tank top and blue four-wheel rollerskates during a scene in which she portrayed her character’s younger self, and the image of Rachel crouched on the ground as she coasted down a street had been one of the most downloaded images that week. The guest stint took place over multiple episodes and Rachel’s appearance on the popular show had been well-received.

“All that work and all people remember are the red shorts and blue rollerskates,” Rachel grumbled grumpily. “I got a stinking _concussion_ on that set!”

“I remember,” Quinn said dryly. “You’re so accident-prone.”

Rachel was indignant. “Take that back! I am very graceful. In fact, it’s my middle name.”

“Your middle name is Barbra.”

“I know, but it used to be Grace. I made my dads change it to Barbara for my sixth birthday present.” Rachel paused. “To be very honest, I still can’t believe they actually did it.”

Quinn stared at Rachel for a moment, her mouth open, and then laughed. “Oh my God, you were just _born_ too much.”

Rachel smiled beatifically and tapped her breastbone with her right index finger. “Made in God’s own image,” she said cheerfully.

Quinn rolled her eyes. “You’re so vain.”

“So the song really is about me?”

Quinn snorted. “Do you _want_ me to hit you? I’m going to hit you.”

Rachel smiled broadly. “Just avoid my nose, okay?”

Quinn smiled back and nodded a few times in acquiescence. “You know,” Quinn said thoughtfully, “the rollerskates probably wouldn’t have been so memorable if it hadn’t been for the Hall and Oates song.”

Rachel pouted. “I like that song!”

“You did a good job singing it,” Quinn said. “I actually liked yours better than the original.” She paused. “But then again, I have better taste than Hall and Oates.”

“It wasn’t my idea!” Rachel exclaimed. “They wanted a cover of ‘Rich Girl’ and I was very committed to giving them a version I could be proud of.”

Quinn chuckled. “Why do you always get killed in your guest roles? Or, like, you fall down stairs.”

“I got stabbed on two different shows,” Rachel offered. “And suffocated in another one.”

“See!”

Rachel shrugged. “There was that one time when I was the killer.”

Quinn blanched. “Don’t remind me. And you’d still died at the end of that one, too.”

Though Rachel had explicitly warned Quinn about letting any of the children watch that particular episode, because it was _violent_ , both for the things that happened to Rachel’s character and the actions Rachel’s character perpetrated. Quinn had been both chilled and impressed by Rachel’s performance, because she _never_ knew Rachel could look so cold. It’d made Quinn wonder what Rachel tapped into to so convincingly portray so much hurt and rage in depth. Molly and Chloe had somehow watched it, later explaining that it was because _Rachel_ was on it. But the episode had frightened both of them and reduced them to huge sobs when the episode ended with Rachel’s character being killed.

Rachel shrugged again. “It was fun. I like playing people who are doomed. It’s award show fodder, after all.”

“Do you ever miss Broadway?”

Quinn knew the only reason Rachel wasn’t on Broadway was because she wanted to spend more time with her kids. When Jesse was alive, they’d apparently made some sort of compromise, but forced to do it alone, Rachel just couldn’t make it work. Rachel would mention offers here and there, and there would be such wistfulness in Rachel’s voice.

“Sometimes,” Rachel said. “But I honestly love that I can spend time with the kids, so it’s worth the trade off. And I’m still fulfilled by what I’m doing.”

Quinn smiled. “Good.”

“What about you?”

“I’m good with not being on Broadway,” Quinn said breezily. “It was always more your dream than mine.”

Rachel lightly swatted Quinn’s arm. “I meant about your job,” she said a little impatiently. “You don’t say much about it.”

“I’m always complaining about it,” Quinn said dryly. She spent at least twenty minutes each time she talked to Rachel, which was practically daily, to rant about her job and typed long, meandering vituperative diatribes railing against her job and sent them to Rachel. But she’d never really had a dream job in mind, not like Rachel. She’d had a dream _life_ and though it hadn’t turned out _quite_ the way she dreamed or hoped, it wasn’t so far off, either. She was okay with not liking her job, because it had its good moments, and really, how many people actually had the luxury of really liking their jobs? Her job was not her life, her job was just a means to _having_ that life and she was totally fine with that difference. She’d explained it more than once to Rachel who always said she understood, but for someone like Rachel, whose job so often mingled with her life, it was difficult for her to understand.

“I worry about you,” Rachel said affectionately. “You sound so stressed all the time.”

“So do you,” Quinn said wryly.

Rachel smiled crookedly. “Kind of makes you wish we could pull our resources together, doesn’t it? Maybe between the two of us we can have 1.5 functional adults.”

Quinn smiled back. “Getting a little lofty, are we?”

Rachel laughed. “It’s good to see you, Quinn.”

“It’s good to see you, too, Rachel.”

\--

Rachel was called in to reshoot some scenes for a movie she filmed on the third day of the trip, and Quinn had to admit she missed the singer’s presence. She’d told Rachel it was no problem, Rachel absolutely did not need to call the nanny to watch the kids, because Quinn genuinely enjoyed spending time with Rachel’s children. Christopher, Rachel’s youngest, was already a motormouth at the age of one, and though it was not _easy_ looking after a baby, Quinn had to admit there was something delicious about them, too. He wasn’t an infant anymore, and for whatever reason, it tugged at her that she’d missed most of his first year of life, at least, being with him in person. So she’d readily agreed to take the baby with her as she and her children toured New York City, guided by Rachel’s two older children who pointed out their favorite locations.

They’d just gotten some shaved ice when Mia threw her cranberry shaved ice to the ground.

“CECI!”

In a split second, Mia was running with Max chasing after her, each of them shouting “CECI!”

Quinn and Beth ran after them anxiously, since they were each aware of the dangers young children could face when running off. Molly and Chloe followed afterward in confusion.

“Ceci! Where have you been? I missed you!” Mia exclaimed.

Max and Mia jumped into the arms of a small, dark-haired woman. Quinn did a double-take because the woman could pass for Rachel’s sister. She also recognized the name immediately as the name of Rachel’s best friend who’d abandoned her. Quinn glowered at the other woman, but the other woman was too preoccupied with hugging Max and Mia.

It took a few minutes, but Ceci finally stood up straight after crouching down to hug her godson and goddaughter. She looked around.

“Where’s your mother?” she asked them. She looked at Quinn with barely concealed hostility. “Where’s Rachel? Who are you? Why are you with them?”

Mia smiled guilelessly at Cecilia and reached for Quinn’s hand, grasping it tightly. “This is Quinn! She’s Mommy’s pretty friend!”

Quinn raised an eyebrow. “What, sweetheart?” she asked.

“Mommy calls you her pretty friend!” Mia chirped.

Quinn chuckled. “She does?!” she asked, her voice exaggerating shock. She actually was surprised, but Mia was theatrical, and so Quinn did her best to be as dramatic as possible around Rachel’s daughter.

Cecilia looked distinctly displeased/ But then her eyes gazed on Christopher in her stroller. She crouched down, reaching into the stroller. “Is that…” her voice was breathy as she trailed off.

Quinn instinctively pulled the stroller back, because this woman _abandoned_ Rachel when Rachel needed her most. She didn’t deserve the right to coo over Christopher.

“It’s been so long since we’ve seen you!” Max exclaimed. “How are you? You must have been busy!”

He was so naïve. He and Mia were both so naïve, and in that moment, their faces so eager and trusting of this woman, so happy to see her, they both reminded Quinn too much of Rachel, who was just so hurt by this woman’s abandonment.

“I’m sorry, honey,” Cecilia said sincerely. “I really am.” She looked at Quinn warily. “Where’s Rachel?”

“She had some scenes to reshoot,” Quinn said stiffly. “We should go though. Come on, kids.”

She took a few steps past her, but Cecilia grabbed Quinn by the arm. “Wait,” the other woman said quietly. “How is Rach?”

Quinn glared at her. “Why don’t you _give her a call_ and find out.”

Cecilia was silent and Max and Mia both hugged her and introduced her to the others as “our godmother” before Quinn took them each by the hand and walked away.

Max and Mia chattered excitedly about seeing Cecilia again, and Quinn thought about how blissful ignorance truly was.

\--

Rachel was quiet when Quinn told her about it when Rachel returned home that night. She’d debated with herself about telling, but she knew Max and Mia would say something anyway, and Quinn thought it was better that she mention something first.

“Did she look okay?” Rachel asked tentatively.

“She looked fine,” Quinn said honestly. She paused. “Did she call you? I told her to.”

Rachel looked crestfallen. “No.”

Quinn watched that night as Rachel called Cecilia for the first time in months and it went to voicemail.

Quinn rubbed Rachel’s shoulder comfortingly when Rachel set her phone aside. “Sometimes friendships just end, Rach,” she said softly.

“She was always kind of a fair-weather friend,” Rachel admitted quietly. She forced a smile. “Are you planning to do the same? Because if so, it’s better you get out now. Speak now or forever hold your peace,” she joked

Quinn remained silent, instead choosing to wrap her arms around Rachel’s shoulders in a half hug. She wasn’t planning on going anywhere.

\--

Quinn wondered what was the point of getting a hotel room when they mostly stayed at Rachel’s apartment anyway. But Rachel’s four bedroom apartment just wasn’t big enough for eight people, not really anyway.

That night, the more time that passed, the more Quinn knew she and the children should just leave. But Rachel just seemed so sad over Cecilia, that Quinn just couldn’t bear to leave her alone. By the time Quinn decided it was time to go, Beth was falling asleep in the spare bedroom with Jesse’s niece, Alexis on the floor; the twins were in a pile with Mia and Max on the sofa and the baby was already in his crib. So Quinn just checked on Beth, who was sleeping comfortably while Rachel called Alexis’s mother to let her known Alexis would be sleeping over. Rachel picked up Mia and tucked her into bed with Max, allowing the twins to share Mia’s bed. It just seemed too late to wake everyone up and get back to the hotel.

Quinn originally intended to just take Rachel’s couch, but she laid down in Rachel’s bed after washing up just to chat and she found she was just too comfortable to leave. So she laid with Rachel in Rachel’s bed, on the side of the bed Jesse used to occupy, and they spoke quietly, well into the night.

“Do your kids have godparents?” Rachel asked softly as they were drifting off. The lamp on her nightstand was still on, and so it was still very bright in the room, but she still found herself sleepy and dozing.

“Yeah,” Quinn said. “Brit and Santana. Mike wanted his sister, but I know that Brit and Santana would take all three of them. And I’d rather the kids be with Brit and Santana than my parents and Mike’s parents are gone now.”

Rachel sighed quietly. “Ceci was their godmother. But now I don’t know what to do,” she said softly. “Jesse died so unexpectedly and I’m terrified because I don’t really have anyone who I’d trust to take the kids if something happened to me. I mean _I_ could drop dead of an aneurysm. My parents are unreliable, Jesse’s parents are even worse and Ceci was my closest friend.”

“What about Jesse?”

“Jesse really didn’t have many friends,” Rachel said dryly. “He was too competitive with men and was not inclined to view women as friends. I guess they’d go to my mother.” Rachel winced. “I know she loves them and she’d take care of them, but I’m still not sure if she’d really be a good mom to them. Just because she’s a good grandma doesn’t mean she’d be a good mom.”

“I’ll take them,” Quinn said softly, without stopping to think about it. The moment she said it, she wondered just what the hell she was thinking.

Rachel sat up, now completely alert. “What?”

Quinn sat up as well. “I’ll take them,” she said quietly. “If you really feel like you have no one else and you really aren’t comfortable with your mother taking them, _I’ll_ take them.”

Rachel swallowed hard. “Why would you even say that? I mean, I am so glad we’ve had this chance to reconnect, but that’s just too much. We haven’t been reacquainted that long and it’s just so much for you to offer and while I appreciate it and _adore_ you for it, it would be too much to ask of _anyone_. I’d trust you over my mother, but it’s still just too much.”

Quinn nodded. “Maybe,” she conceded. “But...” she paused. “If anything ever happened to you, I swear, I’ll make sure your kids are taken care of. One way or another. And not just some basic level, either. I swear, I’ll make sure they’re cared for, Rach.”

Rachel stared for a moment and swallowed visibly. She flung herself at Quinn into a hard embrace. Rachel held her tightly and nuzzled Quinn’s cheek. “I swear, I’ll do the same for Beth and the twins,” she promised fiercely.

Quinn swallowed hard and turned her head slightly, burying her face into Rachel’s hair. Her hair smelled like acai berries. She didn’t know why they were getting so weepy and sorrowful when things had been okay for most of the night. “I know you will,” she said thickly. She discreetly wiped at her eyes, but her hands somehow drift to rub Rachel’s back again.

Rachel laughed softly and pulled away, but she kept her hands on Quinn’s upper arms, just as Quinn put her hands on Rachel’s biceps once Rachel pulled back.

Quinn peered closely at her and saw that Rachel’s eyes were teary and shimmery.

“Why did we even start talking about this?” Quinn asked rhetorically, laughing a little

“I’m not sure,” Rachel said, chuckling. She sniffed and gave Quinn a small smile, who gave Rachel a small smile in return. Rachel involuntarily exhaled softly through her mouth. “I…” she released a small sigh. “Let’s just go to sleep, okay? I’m pretty tired.”

“Yeah, me too,” Quinn said.

Rachel shut off the light, hunkered down in the bed and tried to fall asleep. She was tired, but sleep couldn’t seem to come-- her mind was _racing_. She felt emotional and weepy, like some _kid_ who couldn’t get a grip on her emotions and she didn’t know what she was about to do, but she was _so_ grateful that they hadn’t consumed any alcohol that evening because she was certain that if her judgment had been clouded by alcohol, she would have kissed Quinn.

Kissing Quinn would have been a _disaster_ because Quinn was her _friend_. She just couldn’t feel this way. She never even _considered_ it, but then as she laid there next to Quinn, she mentally rolled through their friendship over the past year and half, and she had to admit to herself, she’d been feeling _something_ for Quinn, and it’d been building up for longer than she cared to admit.  
  
Eventually, she managed to drift off.

\---

 

When Rachel woke up the next morning, Quinn happened to rouse at the same time and they shared a sleepy smile. Rachel was completely unprepared for the way her belly clenched or the flustered attraction that swelled up alongside the genuine happiness she felt when she saw Quinn. It was in _fucking_ explicable because _hello_ , she’d fallen asleep next to Quinn just a few hours before, what the hell was she so happy about? But she was. She was genuinely over-the-moon happy about seeing Quinn. That is, until, she realized what that meant. Rachel was many things, but she was _not_ oblivious. She knew what she was feeling. What she was finally allowing herself to admit, at least to herself.

‘Oh God, please, no,’ Rachel thought to herself. She didn’t want this. She didn’t need this. ‘This is horrible.’

\--

She felt moody and despondent, but she put her best face forward. They went out to breakfast and Rachel sat next to Quinn at the middle of the table. Rachel did her best not to stare at Quinn, but she couldn’t help herself all the time.

Quinn caught her eye, made a face and stuck out her tongue.

It was adorable.

The laugh that bubbled forth from Rachel’s chest was real but the attraction weighed heavily on her. So for the rest of the day, she didn’t talk to Quinn unless she was addressed first, except if it was absolutely necessary to initiate conversation like when she asked Quinn to watch Max while she took Mia and Christopher into the bathroom with her at the restaurant during lunch.

She didn’t want to _ignore_ Quinn, she just wanted to put some distance between them so she could sort out her feelings.

She was incredibly relieved that Quinn, Beth and the twins went back to their hotel that evening.

\--

She thought about it all night, and she was glad to have space from Quinn’s company to really think about it.

She’d had crushes on friends before, of course, crushes so intense and unrequited, that she thought she’d spontaneously combust. But then she got into a steady relationship with Jesse and she’d gotten married by the time she was 21. Even when she developed crushes on other people, and she could admit to herself that she had, she never really had to do anything about it because she was _married_. She knew it couldn’t go anywhere.

But Jesse was gone now, she wasn’t married anymore and she had a crush on her friend.

She didn’t know what she was supposed to do now.

She could almost hear the voice of her husband asking her ‘why do you have to do anything?’ his voice so reasonable, just like always.

They were both people whose instinct was to take action. If a mutual friend came to them with a problem, their first instinct was always to find a solution, rather than just listening. But there were times when Jesse was surprisingly okay with inaction.

The more she thought about it, the more she realized she really didn’t have to do anything about it. There were people who went _years_ with a crush, never letting on. There were people who were _in love_ with a person and just stayed quiet, so why couldn’t she just stay quiet about a stupid crush? The more she thought about it, the more it made sense.

She woke up the next morning feeling better and when she and the children met up with Quinn and her children for breakfast, she felt okay about taking her usual spot next to Quinn.

“Hey,” Quinn said, leaning toward her, their heads coming so close together that Rachel could smell the toothpaste and mouthwash on Quinn’s breath. “You seem better today,” she said pleased. “You were a little off yesterday. Is everything okay?”

Rachel smiled wryly. “I’m spectacular, thank you for asking,” she said, and she knew that she perhaps sounded a little too formal, but somehow that was her default setting. “I had a great night’s sleep,” she lied. “How did you sleep?”

Quinn smiled sweetly in return. “Great,” she informed. “It’s going to be fun today,” she commented.

Rachel nodded. “Great,” she echoed.

\--

 

And so, Rachel pretended, because actress was her default setting and she couldn’t remember a time in her life when she _wasn’t_ an actress. Pretending she was fine when she wasn’t and acting as though everything were peachy keen even when things weren’t okay was the first acting exercise she ever created for herself and she prided herself on having done it for her entire life.

When Quinn and her daughters went home, Rachel hugged each of them, just as she had when they arrived, saving Quinn for last and longest, as if nothing had changed.

“Call me the moment you land,” Rachel murmured, peering up at Quinn.

“I will,” Quinn promised.

And so Rachel sent Quinn on her way with a smile and a promise to talk later.

\--

When a costar for a movie Rachel was filming asked her out on a date, soon after that, Rachel’s first impulse was to say ‘no,’ because in truth, she wasn’t ready. But she thought about how over a year (but actually going on two) had passed since she’d lost Jesse and she thought about her hopeless crush on Quinn and she thought about her life’s philosophy of ‘onward and upward’ and before she knew it, she’d agreed.

It was easy to allow herself to get carried up by his excitement.

He was sweet. He had a reputation for being goofy and gentle. He was slightly awkward. His star was rising, but he was finally getting recognition for his talent, which was genuinely _immense_. He could disappear into a character and it was highly likely a person would be unable to recognize the man playing a sweet, awkward college student with a crush on his best friend in one role to the man playing a sadistic sociopath in another.

He impressed her.

“You guys would have such pretty kids,” another costar whispered to her.

Rachel contemplated that, but only in the abstract. She was done with having children. Three was enough-- she’d been ready to stop at two, not that she had any regrets about Chris. But she could admit she and Jeremy would make incredibly gorgeous children. She wasn’t being arrogant, just factual.

\--

“I’m going on a date tonight,” Rachel announced one afternoon over the phone to Quinn.

There was a moment of stunned silence and Rachel couldn’t help but be a little insulted because _hello_ , the idea of her going on a date shouldn’t be so _shocking_.

“Seriously?” Quinn asked.

Rachel pouted. “Yes, seriously!”

“With who?!”

“Jeremy. I told you about him. He’s plays my male lead.”

There was another moment of silence.

“That’s a terrible idea!” Quinn sputtered. “Horrible!”

Rachel blinked, startled by Quinn’s response. They’d discussed the prospect of each of them dating as a way for each of them to move on from their prior relationships and Quinn had always supported the idea of Rachel dating again. “When you’re ready, of course,” Quinn would drawl. But now Quinn was saying what a terrible idea it was and Rachel was stunned by how vehement Quinn sounded about it.

“Why?” Rachel asked softly.

“Because!” Quinn snapped. “Because….because you don’t shit where you eat, Rachel!”

“What’s _that_ supposed to mean?” Rachel asked, grimacing.

“It means you don’t date coworkers!” Quinn practically bellowed. “It’s an unwritten rule!”

“Of who?”

“Of society! Try joining it!”

“But actors are different, it’s a very common practice of the acting world that you date your costars. Jesse and I were _married_.”

“Yes, and look how well that turned out,” Quinn snarled.

Rachel released a soft breath. “Wow,” she said, though it came out as more of a whimper. That was _much_ harsher than she’d even thought Quinn was capable of being, at least now that they were grown up.

“I’m sorry,” Quinn said hurriedly. “I…I’m so sorry,” she said, her voice trembling. “I didn’t mean it like that! I meant…I mean, he was so unfaithful to you, Rachel. I just…I’m so sorry. I don’t know what to say. I can’t…I have no excuse.”

“I know you’re just looking out for me,” Rachel said quietly. “But I’m mad at you right now and I don’t want to say something in the heat of the moment that I am going to regret. So I’m just going to hang up. I’ll talk to you soon.”

“Rachel, wait,” Quinn said quickly.

“Yes?”

“I didn’t mean it that way,” Quinn said quietly. “I promise. I’m so sorry, Rachel.”

“Yes, okay.”

“Are we okay?” Quinn asked softly.

“Yes,” Rachel said. “Of course. You mean the world to me. I can’t imagine our friendship ending over some harsh, unmeant words.”

“Okay,” Quinn said quietly. “Have fun tonight, Rach. I hope he’s good for you.”

“Thanks. We’ll talk soon.”

“Okay, Rach.”

Quinn barely resisted the urge to ask ‘promise?’

The call ended and Rachel clenched the phone in her hand before carefully setting it down on the table in front of her.

\--

As much as Rachel tried to enjoy the date, she simply couldn’t. Her argument with Quinn bothered her and it weighed her down the entire time. She was just too preoccupied by it to really engage herself with Jeremy.

She coasted through the date, and he walked her to her door. They kissed, and distantly, she thought about how he kissed differently when he was kissing while the cameras were rolling and when he kissed her when it was just the two of them.

He greeted her sweetly the next day when she saw him on set.

“How are you?” he asked, his eyes peering earnestly into hers. “Did you sleep well?”

“I’m great,” she said. “And I slept very well. How did you sleep?”

He smiled sincerely. “Great,” he said. “Did you have a good time last night?”

She smiled. “I did,” she said, because she wanted to be gentle with him. He was a good man.

“Do you want to go out again tonight?” he asked hopefully. “Do you think your nanny would watch the kids tonight, too?”

She didn’t want to lead him on, and she realized Quinn absolutely had a point when she warned her not to ‘shit where you eat.’ She wondered why actors were so dumb, dating their costars. One of her costars, Brielle, had a strict ‘I don’t get my honey where I make my money’ rule and Rachel decided it was one she was going to adopt. Rachel swallowed hard. “Jeremy,” she said softly.

He suddenly looked wary. “Yes?”

“I…I’m just not ready,” she whispered. “I thought I was, but I’m not. It…it hasn’t been long since Jesse and…”

Jeremy nodded. “Okay,” he said softly. “Okay. I get it.” He hesitated. “Did I do something wrong to turn you off?”

Rachel shook her head. “No! Of course not!” she said. “I’m just…I’m genuinely not ready. I’m sorry I wasted your time.”

“You didn’t waste my time,” he said with a small sigh. “Maybe some other time in the future?”

“Maybe,” Rachel nodded.

He smiled at her. “Okay.”

\--

She was in a foul mood when she got home. Jeremy was an absolute professional and treated her exactly the same after they talked and she felt even crappier about herself for wasting his time. She just didn’t feel a connection and a part of her genuinely did not feel ready to reenter the dating world. She had no idea what she was going to do. ‘Possibly spend the rest of my whole life alone,’ Rachel thought darkly.

When she got inside her apartment, the kids were watching a DVD and Christopher was sleeping.

Rachel smiled at the nanny, Francesca. “Everything okay?”

“Yep. How was your day?”

“Good.”

Francesca winked at her. “Your date must have gone well. You got flowers.” She pointed to a previously unseen bouquet of flowers on the console table.

Rachel barely suppressed the urge to blanch. Jeremy must have sent them before they had the talk. “Thanks again,” Rachel said quietly.

Francesca smiled. “You’re welcome,”

Francesca left and Rachel checked on Christopher, saw that he was sleeping soundly and decided to leave well enough alone, though she did have a longing to hold him. She sat with the kids on the sofa as they continued to watch the DVD and then sent them to bed after a couple of hours. It may have still been the summer, but it was the tail end of summer and she didn’t want a problem of getting them back into routine when it was time to get back to school.

It was only when the kids were finally in bed that she allowed herself to really look at the flowers. They were beautiful, but she felt guilty.

She plucked the card out of its envelope and blinked when she saw it wasn’t from Jeremy at all.

‘R,

I’m sorry I was such a jerk.

-Q’

Rachel grinned and breathed in the scent of the flowers and picked up the vase and took them into the bedroom. The flowers instantly perfumed the room. Rachel glanced at the clock-- the three hour time difference between her and Quinn was in her favor, for once. Rachel took a long, hot shower and when she felt nice and clean, she settled into her bed and grabbed her phone.

“I got your flowers,” Rachel murmured in lieu of a greeting when Quinn picked up.

“Did you like them?”

“They’re beautiful,” Rachel said honestly. “But you didn’t have to, you already apologized.”

“I didn’t want to leave it like that,” Quinn said quietly. “I felt so bad.”

“You know,” Rachel mused. “You can avoid that by not saying things like that in the first place.”

“I know,” Quinn said quietly. “You really don’t need to point that out to me.”

“But why do you say things you don’t mean in the first place?” Rachel asked reasonably. “I will, of course, concede that we all say things in the heat of the moment which we don’t mean. But you seem to do it with some regularity. And I just feel you would save yourself a lot of grief if you would just not say those things in the first place.”

“It just came out,” Quinn said uncomfortably. “I guess I never really grew out of high school bitch mentality.”

“Don’t be that extreme, Rachel said softly. “You’re so much better than that.”

“You didn’t deserve that though, Rach.”

“Well, I’m not saying I did,” Rachel teased. “The flowers are beautiful, and we’re fine, Quinn.”

“Okay,” Quinn said softly. “How was your date? I wiki’ed him and he seems like a nice guy.”

“You looked him up?!” Rachel squeaked.

“I wanted to see what kind of guy he was,” Quinn said defensively. “He seems really sweet.”

“He is,” Rachel agreed. “There was no connection though. He’s too…nice. He reminds me of Arf. I need someone with more of an edge.”

Quinn laughed softly. “Like Jesse.”

“Yes.”

“It’s funny,” Quinn mused. “You meet a nice guy and want more of an edge. I’ve gone on dates with guys who I wish were nicer.”

Rachel laughed. “You can’t always get what you want,” she teased in a sing-song.

“But sometimes you get what you need,” Quinn chuckled.

“Yes,” Rachel said. “I know you were only looking out for me, Quinn. You have no idea how much I appreciate that.”

Quinn swallowed hard, because she knew that her outburst had also been motivated by something else: jealousy. But she couldn’t admit to that. It just came out of _nowhere_ , but the thought of Rachel going on a date with someone just made her so irrationally angry. Quinn knew it was completely insensible and illogical, but she’d been so blown away but Rachel’s pronouncement, uttered so simply, and then taken aback by how jealous she felt, that she just blew up.

Quinn was just relieved their friendship wasn’t irreparably damaged by her outburst. They chatted for a little longer, mostly about boring, inane, everyday sorts of things and then Rachel murmured she had to go because she had an early morning the next day.

\--

And so things went on, things stayed the same, nothing changed but the time, until the day something _amazing_ happened.


	7. Epilogue

  
The morning they announced the Oscar nominees was a completely ordinary sort of day for Quinn.

Until Rachel’s name was announced.

Quinn was driving to work after dropping the kids off at school when she heard the announcement. Quinn _screamed_ and pulled the car over to call Rachel.

Rachel answered the phone, screaming.

Quinn screamed back.

They continued to scream back and forth for a while. It wasn’t a huge surprise or anything-- Rachel worked on a number of television and screen projects during the year of eligibility for nominations and she’d already been nominated for an Emmy for her guest role on a _Law and Order_ spinoff in addition to SAG and Golden Globe awards for multiple television and movie roles. She’d won the Emmy, but lost both the SAG and Golden Globes, which she said was okay, but still must have smarted.

The _Oscar_ was a whole other thing in and of itself.

“I can’t believe it,” Rachel said, her voice hushed.

She really couldn’t. Despite being deemed as an ‘early contender’ when her movie came out, she still couldn’t believe it. She’d won two Tony Awards, but this was an _Oscar_.

“I’m not!” Quinn exclaimed. “But still, Rach! The Oscar!”

“I KNOW!”

They both screamed again and then began laughing. Once Quinn felt like she had some control over herself, she popped in her blue tooth and started driving again.

“I’m so proud of you, Rach,” Quinn said sincerely as she drove.

“Thank you,” Rachel murmured. “I can’t say I’ve enjoyed making a name for myself playing a variety of completely doomed characters, but this is…this is my dream! I know it’s an honor just to be nominated, but I _really_ want this. I want that EGOT!”

Quinn laughed. “Just remember, these awards can be given posthumously, so don’t get any ideas edging out the competition, okay?”

“Darn,” Rachel joked. “Better call off the hitmen.”

“From you, I would not be surprised,” Quinn teased.

Rachel laughed. “So,” she said when she caught her breath. “The Oscars are going to be in LA,” she said quietly.

“They usually are,” Quinn said dryly.

“Will you be my date?” Rachel asked shyly.

“Seriously?”

“Who else would I ask?”

“Seriously?”

“It’s just…I’m not dating anyone. And anyone else I could ask would have already been invited, so…”

“Seriously?”

“Is this a recorded message?” Rachel asked suspiciously.

“Seriously?”

“Quinn!”

“Sorry! It’s just…I can’t believe you don’t want to ask anyone else.”

“I…I can ask someone else,” Rachel said quickly. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to put you on the spot like that. I’ll ask--”

“No!” Quinn interrupted. “I want to go. I want to be your date. I was just surprised. That’s all. But of course I’ll be your date.”

“I don’t want to force you into anything,” Rachel said. “You aren’t obliged. I--”

“I want to!”

“Okay,” Rachel said sounding relieved. “This is great!” Rachel said happily. “Thank you, Quinn!”

“Thank _you_. I can’t believe I’m going to the Oscars.”

“This is so going to be great now,” Rachel gushed. “I can’t wait!”

Quinn beamed. “Me too!”

\--

They spent the day of the Oscars bickering with one another as they primped and pampered. Rachel brought her children with her from New York, because really, how often would their mother be nominated for an Oscar? She brought the nanny, Francesca as well.

Rachel and Quinn waved to the children as they left. Beth, Max, Mia, the twins and the baby were all holed up in Quinn’s house where they would watch the award show from the comfort of the blonde’s home.

Quinn gripped Rachel’s hand the entire way to the venue.

“Are you nervous?”

“I’m going to vomit.”

“Are you pregnant?” Quinn joked.

Rachel gave her a dirty look. “Let me allow you to give you a lesson on the birds and the bees, Quinn. You have to actually have sex to get pregnant.”

“It could be the Immaculate Conception all over again,” Quinn joked. “You are Jewish, after all.”

Rachel raised an eyebrow. “I would have thought that joke would be too sacrilegious for you to make.”

“It is, but I wanted you to mellow out. You’re going to make _me_ throw up.”

Rachel grinned. “Are _you_ pregnant?”

“You have to actually have sex to get pregnant,” Quinn parroted

Rachel smiled wryly. “Our lives are very pathetic.”

“I know.”

\--

When they finally got to Best Actress in a Motion Picture category, Rachel gripped her hand so hard, Quinn was sure that the fragile bones in her hand would shatter. She was very glad she was not a surgeon.

When Rachel’s name was announced, it took a moment for either of them to realize it until the people around them began staring at them as they clapped and cheered. People behind Rachel gave her congratulatory pats on the back.

Rachel’s eyes were as wide as saucers as she stared at Quinn, who stared back at her.

Rachel’s mouth ripped into a grin. “Oh my gosh!” she shrieked.

“I know!” Quinn shrieked back.

Quinn grabbed Rachel into a fierce hug. They pulled away from each other and shared another smile as they stared into each other’s eyes when Quinn impetuously grabbed Rachel by the shoulders and pulled Rachel toward her. She pressed her lips against Rachel’s. Rachel froze in shock for a moment before she eagerly began returning the kiss, one of her hands cupping Quinn’s cheek, the other moving up to clench in through Quinn’s hair.

Quinn released a tiny moan as Rachel’s mouth parted and Rachel’s tongue ran across Quinn’s lower lip before gently pushing between Quinn’s parted lips. When their tongues touched, Rachel moaned into her mouth, and Quinn heard herself release a little moan in response. Rachel’s lips were so _so_ soft, because she’d spent weeks using the Leaf and Rusher sugar exfoliator to perfect her appearance for the red carpet. Rachel’s skin was so soft because of the facial and sauna scrub they’d gotten together the day before from a spa in Koreatown. Her hair smelled amazing.

Quinn genuinely felt the world _stop_ , but only a few seconds had passed.

They kissed for a few seconds before they realized their kiss was likely being broadcast in real time all around the world. They pulled apart and stared at one another, each of their eyes, wide with shock. And all Quinn wanted to do was to kiss her again, but she could only stare. In that moment, Rachel was her stupefaction. Rachel seemed to feel a similar urge because her hands were on Quinn’s shoulders and Quinn felt a gentle tug before Rachel apparently reconsidered and sat back, pulling her hands away from Quinn completely.

They stared at one another, blank-faced and stunned for another few seconds as the audience continued to clap and cheer.

And then Rachel grinned at her, and Quinn had to grin back. Rachel pulled Quinn close in a quick hug and kissed her cheek. “Let’s talk about this,” Rachel whispered. “Promise?”

“Promise.”

And then Rachel practically _skipped_ to the podium to accept her award.

\--

Quinn had no idea what Rachel said in the beginning of her speech because her phone began vibrating at that moment. She saw the caller was Beth and felt slammed with anxiety because she was certain Beth wouldn’t call unless it was for something important. She hunkered down in the seat, keeping her eyes on Rachel and answered it.

She was greeted by the sound of five children, one toddler and a nanny screaming and cheering at the same time.

“I KNEW IT!” Beth shouted. “I KNEW IT!”

“I’ll talk to you later,” Quinn whispered, before hanging up.

Her phone rang again. Brittany. Quinn ignored it. And it rang again and again. Quinn finally shut it off. Beside her, Rachel’s purse was still in her chair. Rachel’s phone was buzzing as well and Quinn took the liberty of shutting it off.

The audience was clearly still titillated by the kiss. Rachel was exuberant and excited, but did not comment on the kiss. She was a consummate professional who still managed to deliver the acceptance speech she’d prepared, revised and practiced since she was four. The audience clapped and Rachel began to bounce back to her seat before the presenters of the category pointed out she was leaving the award on the podium. Rachel blushed, ducked her head as people gently laughed. She grabbed her award and bounced back to her seat.

Rachel slammed into her seat and practically bounced into Quinn. “Let’s get out of here,” Rachel whispered, her mouth pressing close to Quinn’s ear. “Once we have the opportunity to make a discreet exit.”

“Okay,” Quinn agreed happily.

The first chance they had, Rachel took Quinn by the hand and they made a break for it.

\--

They turned on the radio as they drove home, and their kiss was already being discussed relentlessly. It was trending on Twitter. Every time they changed radio stations, they stumbled onto DJs talking about it. Some people were horribly off-based, calling it an attempt to push a ‘gay agenda’ while others were calling it a publicity stunt. Still others were congratulating Rachel for coming out so publicly and others were calling Rachel’s marriage to Jesse ‘a sham’ in light of her kiss with Quinn. There were, of course, the requisite comments about how ‘hot’ it’d been and Quinn could admit it’d been _very_ hot. But despite all the speculation, not one person came even close to the truth. How could an outside party know the truth, when the parties involved didn’t even know? They finally got impatient-- there were zeppelinfuls of stations on Quinn’s satellite radio, but they were all talking about Rachel Berry and her date kissing at the Oscars. It was sort of ridiculous. Quinn pushed a button on her radio to switch over to the MP3 CD and she was relieved because at least she knew for sure that there would be no talk of Rachel Berry’s kiss.

The moment Quinn switched from radio to CD, Rachel’s voice filled the car, midway through ‘Defying Gravity.’ She’d played Elphaba on Broadway and the soundtrack was released, nearly matching the sales of the first Broadway cast recording.

Rachel chuckled, but didn’t comment. Quinn blushed and pushed ‘next’ which was yet another MP3 of Rachel, this time from _RENT_. Exasperated, Quinn pushed another button which would take her into the next folder on the MP3 CD, which mercifully contained embarrassing songs from the 80s and nothing from Rachel Berry.

“You listen to me?” Rachel asked softly as they drove.

Quinn shrugged. “You knew that I did.”

They pulled into some completely nondescript strip mall with a CVS, VONS and a Toys ‘R’ Us along with a smattering of little stores in between. Parking was plentiful, but they pulled into an area that was not overly illuminated by street lights.

“So…” Rachel said softly.

“So…” Quinn echoed.

They fell silent and it was quiet in the car except the sound of the engine running and the A/C running. It’d been unseasonably hot that week.

“Was that an isolated incident?” Rachel asked quietly. She swallowed hard.

“No,” Quinn said. “I…I meant it. I felt it.”

Rachel beamed in obvious relief. “Do you liiiiike me?”

Quinn snorted. “No. You’re actually very annoying.”

Rachel pouted. “Did I mention I won an Oscar?”

“Okay, now you’re an annoying show-off.”

Rachel pouted, but grinned slyly. “Well, if you don’t like me, I’m sure there are a myriad of people who will pretend to like an Oscar winner.”

Quinn looked murderous. “Don’t get smart.”

“I was being cocky. Please recall you called me an annoying show-off, I was merely trying to give credence to your claims. Friends do that for one another.”

Quinn shook her head. “You’re annoying.”

“I know,” Rachel said with a smile. “And you’re repetitious.”

Quinn chuckled, and she leaned in close and reached for Rachel’s hands. “I never actually congratulated you on winning,” she mused.

Rachel blushed at the realization she’d won an Oscar. It really hadn’t hit her until that moment. She ducked her head and smiled shyly. “Thank you,” she said, averting her eyes.

Quinn smiled and hesitantly reached out to cup Rachel’s cheek. This was still so new to both of them. “Are we doing this?” she asked, marveling a little at the whole thing. “It’s just… this is so… _unexpected_. It feels like it came out of nowhere.”

“It hasn’t for me,” Rachel admitted quietly. “It’s been building up for me. I just didn’t say anything because…you really mean a lot to me and I didn’t want to scare you off. But I’ve known, at least, from this past summer and I think it was building up way before then.”

Quinn chuckled softly. “I’ve felt it around then, too,” she confessed. She sobered up. “How are we going to do this?” she asked, because in the morning, Rachel and the kids would be leaving and then where would she and Rachel go from there?

“I don’t know,” Rachel admitted thoughtfully. She gently reached out to squeeze one of Quinn’s thighs. “But I believe you merit the risk in finding out.”

Quinn laughed gently. “Okay,” she said, acceptingly.

“So,” Rachel said. “We’re doing this.”

“Yes,” Quinn said. “We are.”

“I’m going to kiss you now,” Rachel announced. “Because we’re in your car right now, and it’s going to be one of the few times we have privacy from the prying eyes of our children, though I suspect there is some very ill-mannered paparazzi taking our pictures without our awareness or consent with his or her telephoto lens. But kissing in the car also seems to hearken back to the days of high school and that seems very fitting for us.”

“Just kiss me, you show-off.” Quinn said dryly.

“This is going to change everything for me,” Rachel said quietly. “If this is just for tonight or you’re going to freak out on me and stop talking to me because of it, or if you don’t actually want this, but you’re just caught up in the thrill of it, you _need_ to say something right now. Because I _really_ want this and if you don’t, you need to say it. Speak now or forever hold your peace, Quinn.”

Quinn smiled, her lips curving up slowly. She leaned in close, cupping the sides of Rachel’s neck. Their faces came very close together and their noses grazed each other as they stared at one another for a moment. Quinn chuckled softly when she realized ‘True’ by Spandau Ballet was playing and she suddenly felt like Molly Ringwald in _16 Candles_. She supposed that made Rachel her Jake Ryan, which kind of fit.

“Fuck it,” Rachel said softly before Rachel decided to throw caution to the wind and just kiss her. After all, Quinn wasn’t saying anything in protest and the moment felt sort of right with a decidedly 80’s soundtrack in the background as they hung out in a parking lot like a couple of teenagers in Quinn’s sensible mom car. She focused on the lyrics to the song _I know this much is true, I know this much is true_ and not on all the niggling doubts that chipped away at her. She’d come a long way since high school, but she still had a tendency to let self-doubt outrun good sense.

Quinn returned the kiss eagerly and if their little kiss at the Oscars was an appetizer meant to whet the appetite, then this kiss was the main course and Quinn’s hands which were now reaching under her dress to grope her breasts was the dessert.

_This is the sound of my soul, this is the sound of my soul_

When they pulled apart, Quinn stared at her, looking slightly stupefied.

“But you’re going away. You and the kids,” Quinn said, looking slightly worried and a little close to tears.

Rachel smiled at her. “Don’t worry, we’ll figure it out,” she promised.

 _This much is true, This much is true_  
\--

When it was time to leave, Quinn and Rachel were in Quinn’s bedroom, packing up the last of Rachel’s things into a suitcase. The mood was a little somber-- neither of them wanted to separate, but it was also a little excited because it was so _new_. The disparity had proven to be a little overwhelming and they’d spent the last few hours since leaving the Oscars intermittently laughing and crying.

Rachel handed her Oscar to Quinn. Less than 24 hours ago, she wanted to hold that thing in her hands so badly, her desire was palpable to everyone around her. Now she was kind of indifferent to it. It really was going of ugly and gaudy when she got a good look at it.

“Keep this for me” Rachel said with a smile. “I’ll be back soon to get it.”

Quinn’s forehead furrowed. “But it’s your Oscar. It’s important to you. This gives you your EGOT.”

Rachel smiled crookedly. “Then you better keep it safe for me. I’ll be back soon to get it, and if I see that you’ve used it for something other than its intended purpose, such as a hat rack or something, I’ll give you a diatribe you will never forget.”

Quinn grinned and took it. “What if I use it as a paperweight?” she asked, hefting it in one hand.

Rachel contemplated. “That would be acceptable, I suppose. In any case, keep it safe for when I come back to collect it.”

“Or I might drop it off to you,” Quinn offered. She set the award, gently, on top of her dresser, reverently running her thumb across Rachel’s name.

Rachel smile widened. “We’ll figure it out.”

“Yeah,” Quinn agreed.

“Hey,” Rachel said softly.

“Yeah?”

“’This is the sound of my soul,’” Rachel sang softly, before she wrapped her arms around Quinn’s waist tightly, and kissed her.

“You’re so cheesy,” Quinn complained good-naturedly when they pulled apart, she was a little out of breath, which made Rachel arch her eyebrows.

“This is our song,” Rachel pointed out. “A couple’s song has to be cheesy.”

“I disagree,” Quinn argued. “It doesn’t have to be, there’s no hard and fast rule for it. I’m not going down this path of geekiness. It’s a path no one comes back from. I mean, _you’re_ still there.”  
  
Rachel was amused. “So you won’t be joining me?”

“I might visit, but I won’t ever join your land of geekdom. That is your domain, not mine.”

Rachel smiled. “Are you that sure? I can be very convincing.”

Quinn softened. “I suppose I can always lease with option to buy.”

Rachel laughed. “Remember when your greatest aspiration was a Lima real-estate agent?”

Quinn made a face. “Don’t remind me.”

Rachel palmed Quinn’s right cheek. “I think you’ve proven you can be more than even _you_ give yourself credit for,” she said tenderly. “Just stick this out with me, okay? I can’t promise you the world, but I can promise you me.”

Quinn swallowed hard. “That’s all I need.”

Epilogue

Time passed so quickly, Quinn didn’t even noticed that it’d passed, until one day, her youngest child, her Christopher, was getting married. She still remembered her first image of him when he was just hours old, sent to her via cell phone by her now-wife who had then just been a friend.

She still remembered the first time she’d ever given him a bath-- Rachel had always done it up until then, but she was away, doing ten shows a week on Broadway on a show that was only supposed to go for a few months, but kept getting extended.

That particular day, Rachel had only been gone for a day, but Christopher had called for his mother the entire day, and Quinn felt helpless because she just wasn’t enough for him. He was three years old and wanted his mother and their relationship was still new enough that she sometimes felt like she wasn’t his other mom.

He wiggled away from her when he heard the sound of his mother’s voice, not realizing that it was only a recording of her singing that the older children were listening to in the living room. He jumped out of the bath, fully naked as she chased after him down the hall and her heart nearly shattered when she saw him freeze in the living room, and look around, searching for Rachel. He looked so bewildered and burst into tears, when Rachel didn’t materialize. He called out for his mother and Quinn didn’t know what to do other than to grab her sobbing toddler and finish giving him a bath.

He slept with her in the bed that night, curled into her and crying softly.

“Mama, where’s Mommy?” he’d asked her, pressing his face into her neck.

“She’ll be home soon,” she soothed.

Saturday morning, Rachel came home as Quinn was giving Christopher a bath.

Rachel’s voice boomed through the house and once again, Quinn found herself running after her naked toddler. Christopher flung himself at Rachel and Rachel seemed completely unfazed by Christopher’s nakedness. She picked him up, holding him close to her chest and rocked him in her arms.

“Mommy!”

“Hello, baby!” Rachel cooed. She smiled at Quinn. “Miss me?”

“I did,” Quinn said with a nod.

They finished giving him a bath together and after that, they needed a bath themselves. Bath time became more like play-time. They dried Christopher off and he went off to torment his siblings.

They stepped into their shower together and Quinn’s eyes roamed over Rachel’s naked body hungrily. It was amazing how just a few days apart made her miss this woman so badly, it hurt.

\--

When Quinn looked back on it, she wasn’t sure how they even made it. There’d been times in their relationship when she didn’t even see Rachel for months, when her wife left their family to go off to film some movie in some exotic location so far away she couldn’t feasibly fly back for a weekend. There’d been _years_ in their relationship when Rachel only spent one full day with their family as she flew back and forth between LA and New York because Quinn couldn’t leave her life in LA to move to New York, but Rachel couldn’t give up her dream of Broadway either.

It hadn’t been easy-- there’d been some days when they both had regrets about even bothering to come together. But when Rachel promised Quinn “we’ll figure it out,” she’d meant it, and when she stood next to Quinn and made a vow before God, their families and their friends to weather through the hard times and celebrate the good times until ‘death do us part,’ she’d meant that, too.

So now, Rachel held Quinn’s hand as they watched their youngest son, who’d never been able to know his father, but had always known the love of two mothers, kiss his young bride, and they both knew they’d definitely figured it out.

“’This is the sound of my soul,’” Rachel sang softly into Quinn’s ear as she leaned close to kiss her wife’s cheek.

Quinn gave her a small smile. “You are still such a geek.”

 

The End

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> 1:http://sulkygeekff.livejournal.com/72718.html  
> 2:http://sulkygeekff.livejournal.com/73166.html  
> 3:http://sulkygeekff.livejournal.com/73465.html  
> 4:http://sulkygeekff.livejournal.com/73472.html  
> 5:http://sulkygeekff.livejournal.com/73773.html  
> 6:http://sulkygeekff.livejournal.com/74264.html  
> 7/epilogue: http://sulkygeekff.livejournal.com/74552.html


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